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THE  CONTROL  OF  IDEALS 


SOME  RECENT  BORZOI 
BOOKS 

SAN  CRISTOBAL  DE  LA  HABANA 
By  Joseph  Hergesheimer 

LE'llERS  OF  A  JAVANESE  PRINCESS 
By  Raden  Adjeng  Kartini 

INTERPRETERS 

By  Carl  Van  Vechten 

THE  GROUNDWORK  OF  CIVILIZATION 
By  A.  A.  Goldenweiser 

THE  FOUNDATIONS  OF  SOCIAL  SCI- 
ENCE 
By  James  Mickel  Williams 

YOUTH  AND  EGOLATRY 
By  Pio  Baroja 

THE  CONTROL  OF  IDEALS 

A  Contribution  to  the  Study  of  Ethics 
By  H.  B.  VAN  WESEP 


,  •  •  '•  o     <»    > » 


New  York       ALFRED- A- KNOPF       Mcmxx 


COPYRIGHT,  1920,  BY  -pv  -7-0    7 

ALFRED  A.  KNOPF,  Inc.  f  ->  ^  / 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMBEICA 


PREFACE 

In  the  few  chapters  that  follow  I  have  aimed  at 
writing  a  reconstruction  book  dealing  with  first  prin- 
ciples and  concerned  primarily  with  the  matter  of 
war  prevention.  Just  as  after  an  influenza  epidemic 
it  is  one  thing  for  a  nation  to  regain  its  health  and 
another  thing  to  prevent  future  outbreaks,  so  after  a 
war  it  is  one  thing  to  restore  the  piping  times  of  peace 
and  another  thing  to  learn  by  what  steps  to  avoid 
future  conflicts.  This  book  deals  with  principles  of 
prevention  rather  than  methods  of  cure. 

The  only  way  to  outgrow  war  is  through  education; 
and  the  problem  is  one  not  so  much  of  each  man  ed- 
ucating his  neighbour,  as  of  each  man  educating 
himself  into  independence  of  certain  powerful  tradi- 
tions and  ideals  that  apparently  make  war  inevitable. 
The  crux  of  the  situation  is  the  personal  problem  of 
changing  our  attitude  toward  ideals.  The  attitude 
aimed  at  is  expressed  in  the  phrase  that  "we  can  af- 
ford to  laugh  a  little  at  our  own  ideals  and  hold  them 
no  less  dear." 

The  root  of  modern  wars  lies  in  the  clash  of  ideals. 
Along  with  numerous  scientific  inventions  and 
theories,   the  constructive   imagination  of  man  has, 

during  the  last  few  centuries,  been  throwing  off  a 

y 

434551 


vi  Preface 


mass  of  conflicting  ideals.  Our  varying  dreams  of 
power,  acquisition,  beauty,  culture,  liberty,  and  what 
not  have  gained  such  a  terrific  hold  on  us  that  for 
them  millions  gladly  lay  down  their  lives. 

The  remedy  is  not  fewer  ideals  but  the  control  of 
ideals.  Imagination  and  its  ideals  should  be  sub- 
jected to  laws  much  in  the  same  way  that  Aristotle 
long  ago  subjected  ideas  and  the  whole  realm  of 
reasoning  to  the  laws  of  logic.  A  few  of  these  laws, 
more  particularly  the  fundamental  one  that  dreams 
are  not  greater  than  the  dreamer,  or  in  other  words 
that  human  life  is  prior  to  human  ideals,  I  have  tried 
to  lay  down. 

The  book  falls  into  two  parts:  the  first  section 
takes  up  the  origin,  nature,  and  function  of  human 
ideals;  the  later  chapters  develop  a  theory  of  the 
supreme  worth  of  the  individual  and  of  human  life. 
This  theory  does  not  involve  acceptance  of  any  of  the 
recent  variants  of  socialism  or  anarchy.  I  have 
worked  ahead  on  the  well-established  basis  of  in- 
dividualism. 

As  a  contribution  to  ethics,  this  book  represents 
an  attempt  at  a  fresh  approach  to  some  old  problems. 
The  aim  has  been  to  limit  the  discussion  to  funda- 
mental issues  connected  with  the  prevention  of  war. 
Abstruse  and  hackneyed  terms  peculiar  to  ethics  or 
economics  have  been  avoided,  as  the  book  is  intended 
to  appeal  first  of  all  to  the  average  intelligent  reader 
with  no   special  training  in  technical  terminology. 


Preface  vii 


The  book  is  not  a  complete  practical  ethics  nor  a 
metaphysics  of  ethics.  It  calls  for  a  further  state- 
ment on  the  detailed  application  of  the  principles 
laid  down — a  task  which,  however,  is  outside  the 
scope  of  this  short  work. 

My  thanks  are  due  to  Professor  R.  M.  Wenley  of 
the  Department  of  Philosophy  at  the  University  of 
Michigan  for  his  kindness  in  accepting  the  time- 
consuming  task  of  reading  the  manuscript  of  one  of 
his  former  students.  I  am  especially  indebted  to 
him  for  the  thorough  manner  in  which  this  was  done, 
and  for  his  many  helpful  suggestions  and  emenda- 
tions. I  also  wish  to  acknowledge  my  debt  to  the 
contagious  enthusiasm  with  which  Alieda  van  Wesep 
has  served  as  my  public  in  the  preparation  of  this 
book  to  which  she  has  contributed  numerous  valuable 
hints  and  ideas.  It  is  impossible,  of  course,  to  ac- 
knowledge in  detail  my  indebtedness  to  printed 
sources,  but  an  exception  should  be  made  in  the  case 
of  the  published  works  of  Professor  Warner  Fite  of 
Princeton,  one  of  the  first  and  foremost  expounders 
of  individualism  in  America. 

H.  B.  VAN  Wesep. 

New  York,  April  8,  1920. 


CONTENTS 


I.    Variety  of  Ideals  1-14 

Man  an  imaginative  animal — Ideals  the  product  of 
the  imagination — Their  classification  into  ideals  of 
power,  beauty,  and  truth. 


11.    Attitude  Toward  Ideals  15-26 

Naive  worship  of  ideals — Their  human  origin — Dan- 
ger elements  if  not  used  as  a  means  to  an  end — 
Relation  of  war  to  ideals — Laughing  at  our  own 
ideals. 


III.    Assimilation  of  Ideals  27-38 

Multiplicity  of  ideals — Assimilated  like  food — 
Change  into  ideas,  laws,  customs  and  institutions — 
Philosophy,  the  history  of  successful  ideals — Need 
of  diversity  in  mental  food — Life  superior  to  ideals 
— Living  hy  not  for  ideals. 


IV.    The  Survival  of  Ideals  39-49 

Struggle  for  existence  among  ideals — Ideals  bio- 
logical variations  of  the  human  type — Their  envir- 
onment and  proper  battle  field — Importance  of  keep- 
ing ideals  in  realm  of  imagination  till  ripe. 


V.    Nations  50-62 

Tendency  to  limit  ideals  to  a  few  great  ones — 
Deification  of  supreme  ideals — Nations  the  present 
day  gods — A  nation  a  psychological  entity — Civil- 
ized and  uncivilized  nations — ^Vanishing  point  of 
nations — Earthianism. 


Contents 


VI.    Development  of  Self-Consciousness  63-70 

Individual  self-determination. — Our  business  to  be 
careful  of  the  single  life — Growth  of  self-conscious- 
ness means  greater  regard  for  the  individual — 
Meaning  of  civilization. 


VII.    Society  Versus  the  Individual  71-79 

Present  institutions  the  result  of  shallow  coopera- 
tion— Feeble  concerted  action  traceable  to  feeble 
individual  action — Mankind  not;  anthropomorphic 
enough — Via  media  between  animals  and  gods — 
Spiritual  hunger — Case  of  Tolstoy — Spiritual 
growth. 


VIII.    Utopianism  80-90 

Utopianism  or  exaltation  of  the  State — Plato  and 
Hegel  compared — Christianity,  science,  and  art — 
Deepening  of  the  inner  life. 


IX.    Democracy  91-100 

Right  of  individual  to  life — Equality  and  inequality 
of  men — Nietzsche  and  Christianity — Immorality  of 
self-sacrifice — Role  of  persuasion  in  Greek  democ- 
racies. 


X.    Tolerance  101-107 

Religious  tolerance  and  national  tolerance — Mak- 
ing private  issues  out  of  public  ones — Dangers  of 
class  consciousness  and  class  intolerance. 


XI.    Harmony  108-120 

Historical  solution  of  the   problem  of  harmony — 
Greeks,  Leibnitz,  Bergson — Ethical  integration. 


XII.    Symbiosis  121-130 

Natural  organisms  as  a  solution  of  inequality — Par- 
asitism and  self-sacrifice — Division  of  labor — ^Func- 
tion of  the  expert — Mutual  usefulness. 


Contents  xi 


XIII.    Atomism  131-138 

Individual  the  atom  of  society — Unit  of  ethics — 
Destructive  element  in  ethical  growth — Considera- 
tion of  arguments  against  individualism — Death — 
Self-realization. 


XIV.    Functions  of  Ideals  139-145 

The  hooks  on  the  atom — Human  character  of  ideals 
— Function  to  bind  man  to  man —  Uncrowning  of 
dangerous  ideals — Necessity  of  helpful  ideals — 
Sanctity  of  individual  as  creator  of  ideals. 

XV.    Moral  Courage  146-150 

Game  of  life — ^Fight  against  nature  and  death — 
Moral  courage — "Never  say  die"  spirit  in  man. 


THE  CONTROL  OF  IDEALS 


CHAPTER  I 

VARIETY  OF  IDEALS 

Man  is  not  so  much  a  rational  as  an  imaginative 
animal.  Born  from  passion,  rooted  in  mystery,  and 
our  lives  a  continual  prey  to  conflicting  emotions,  it 
is  almost  a  travesty  that  we  should  plume  ourselves 
on  rationality.  The  most  distinctive  thing  about  us 
is  not  our  reason  but  the  magic  eye  of  the  imagina- 
tion by  which  we  look  into  the  world,  not  of  things 
as  they  are,  but  of  things  as  they  should  be.  There 
is  no  more  deeply  human  quality  about  us  than  this 
supplementary  vision  which  has  turned  us  into 
denizens  of  two  distinct  and  separate  realms.  The 
imagination  is  the  source  of  that  ethical  uneasiness 
which  has  made  thousands  think  that  they  were  in 
this  world  but  not  of  it;  it  is  the  root  of  that  unrest 
which  will  not  let  us  settle  down  either  as  animals  or 
as  angels.  We  have  become  so  genuinely  amphi- 
bious that  we  no  longer  know  whether  our  true  home 
is  among  the  things  we  see  with  our  eyes,  or  among 
the  things  we  see  with  our  imagination.  So,  at  will 
we  live  now  in  the  crass  material  world  and  then 
again  in  the  world  of  our  hopes  and  ideals.  It  is 
with  the  latter  world  that  ethics  is  chiefly  concerned. 

Ethics  treats  of  human  ideals. 

I 


2,..   .  The  Control  of  Ideals 

Ip  their  simplest  form  ideals  are  mental  pictures 
of :  oiirse'lves  uot  as  w^  are  but  as  we  should  like  to 
be.  The  exact  technique  of  how  we  originally- 
learned  to  fashion  ideals  is  lost  in  prehistoric  an- 
tiquity, but  the  first  famished  ape-man  who,  in  club- 
bing his  prey  to  death,  saw  a  vision  of  himself  roast- 
ing the  bearsteak  instead  of  eating  it  raw,  achieved 
an  ideal.  Perhaps  he  was  trying  to  imitate  the  all- 
scorching  sun,  perhaps  he  was  merely  recalling  the 
taste  of  meat  burned  by  accident,  at  any  rate  he  was 
visualizing  an  event  before  it  happened  and  to  that 
extent  he  was  seeing  the  invisible.  He  was  learning 
to  dream  in  the  daytime  and  the  ability  to  do  that  is 
still  the  hallmark  that  stamps  us  human  beings. 

Ever  since  men  have  learned  how  to  make  ideals 
they  have  gone  on  perfecting  the  art.  Ideals  have 
long  since  lost  their  primitive  simplicity  but  they 
have  never  left  us.  Like  a  cloud  by  day  and  a  pillar 
of  fire  by  night  they  have  throughout  all  ages  been 
guiding  the  destinies  of  mankind,  until  we  have  gone 
too  far  along  the  winding  road  of  idealism  ever  Jo 
return  to  the  unimaginative  life  of  animals  which 
exist  only  in  the  world  of  things  as  they  are.  The 
habit  of  following  the  lodestar  of  some  ideal  or  other 
has  become  second  nature  to  us,  stronger  than  the 
impulse  toward  self-preservation.  For  centuries  it 
has  been  our  joy  to  create  us  heroic  patterns,  fash- 
ioned in  our  own  image,  and  to  these  patterns  we 
have  accorded  an  unstinted  devotion  that  has  in  it  ele- 


Variety  of  Ideals 


ments  both  of  pathos  and  sublimity.  Our  most  pro- 
found pastime  has  become  to  see  ourselves  bigger  or 
smaller  than  we  really  are,  either  more  beautiful  or 
more  ugly,  either  as  devils  or  as  gods.  The  lure  of 
our  shining  ideals  has  made  us  long  for  such  things 
as  never  were  on  sea  or  land,  for  through  them  we 
have  become  worshippers  of  the  beautiful,  the  ter- 
rible, and  the  great.  Our  ideals  have  taught  us  to 
sacrifice  the  present  for  the  glory  of  the  future. 
They  are  the  secret  of  our  growth  as  human  beings. 

The  variety  of  ideals  garnered,  discarded,  and  re- 
garnered  by  the  human  race  is  inexhaustible.  Mun- 
dane activity  runs  the  gamut  from  tinkering  to  in- 
vention, from  hobbies  to  artistry,  from  barter  to 
statesmanship,  from  children's  games  to  the  wars  of 
nations;  and  every  line  of  endeavour  is  guided  by  its 
appropriate  ideal.  The  millions  of  little  everyday 
ideals,  like  the  shades  and  nuances  in  a  rainbow, 
escape  enumeration.  Only  the  primary  ones  that 
underlie  all  others  can  conveniently  be  classified. 
The  comprehensiveness  of  our  ideals  is  best  brought 
out  by  dividing  them  into  groups  of  which  there  are 
three:  ideals  of  power,  ideals  of  beauty,  and  ideals 
of  truth. 

Ideals  of  power  centre  around  a  regard  for  that 
which  is  big.  They  are  rooted  in  the  individual  and 
racial  fear  that  played  so  large  a  part  in  the  early 
history  of  mankind.  To  primitive  man  dealing  with 
material  things  and  constantly  harried  by  the  fear  of 


The  Control  of  Ideals 


objects  more  vaguely  massive  and  powerful  than  him- 
self nothing  is  more  natural  than  that  his  ideals  and 
his  very  notions  of  what  is  valuable  should  group 
themselves  around  the  idea  of  bigness.  From  the 
dawn  of  history  comes  the  habit  of  bowing  down  be- 
fore wholes  that  are  greater  than  the  individual. 
Very  early  in  the  life  of  the  race  the  supremely  big 
and  mighty  entity  with  which  human  beings  came  into 
contact  was  symbolized  as  a  deity.  It  is  easy  to 
laugh  at  the  crude  idolators  of  bygone  days,  but  they 
worshipped  and  worship  is  ever  sublime.  Fear  is 
never  a  laughing  matter;  and  when  fear  deepens  into 
respect  and  respect  takes  the  shape  of  obedience  to 
our  own  higher  impulses,  something  akin  to  a  natural 
law  is  bom.  Without  the  rise  of  Judaism  and 
Christianity,  without  the  Roman  Church,  the  Crusades, 
and  the  Reformation,  whole  eras  are  rudderless. 
Directing  the  lives  of  countless  men  throughout  all 
ages  has  been  their  devotion  to  a  deity  whose  com- 
mands might  vary,  but  whose  authority  was  unques- 
tioned, and  whose  guiding  light  shone  out  like  an 
unmistakable  beacon  over  rocks  and  cliffs  treacherous 
enough  to  shipwreck  any  nascent  race.  This  is 
clearly  a  case  of  being  led  by  an  ideal  whose  in- 
trinsic quality  is  greatness.  Men  have  had  many  re- 
ligions and  many  gods,  but  all  views  of  the  Deity 
agree  in  making  him  bigger  than  man;  and  in  doing 
this  they  set  themselves  an  ideal  that,  like  the  Great 


Variety  of  Ideals 


Stone  Face,  was  bound  to  render  the  worshipper  more 
divine. 

In  lesser  things  also,  man  was  early  guided  by  a 
regard  for  size  and  quantity.  On  the  materialistic 
plane  it  is  hard  to  find  a  more  elementary  rule  than 
that  value  is  measured  by  size.  The  first  slave  who 
ever  chopped  down  trees  measured  his  wood  by  the 
cord;  the  first  flocks  that  were  ever  owned  were 
counted  by  number  and  weighed  by  the  pound.  The 
larger  the  animal  the  more  meat  on  its  bones — this 
has  always  been  true — the  more  of  them  killed  the 
greater  the  hunt,  the  more  hunters  the  stronger  the 
tribe,  the  stronger  the  tribe  the  greater  its  chances  of 
victory;  and  since  time  immemorial  the  size  of  a  vic- 
tory has  been  measured  by  the  vastness  of  the  spoils. 
The  notion  that  value  is  in  some  way  measured  by 
size  has  entered  into  the  fibre  of  the  race. 

It  may  be  doubted  whether  in  the  very  early  his- 
tory of  the  race  men  had  clear  notions  of  themselves 
as  individuals.  Certainly  they  thought  more  of  the 
family  and  the  tribe  and  the  customs  of  their  ances- 
tors than  they  did  of  their  private  likes  and  dislikes. 
They  blindly  followed  the  biological  law  that  first  of 
all  it  is  the  type  that  must  be  preserved.  The  com- 
plete organism  was  instinctively  considered  to  be 
greater  than  any  of  its  members,  and  therefore  it 
seemed  fitting  that  no  member  should  stand  in  the 
way  of  the  development  of  tribe  or  nation.     All  the 


6  The  Control  of  Ideals 

germs  of  the  sublimest  patriotism  are  there,  based  on 
this  ethics  of  quantity. 

Most  of  us  are  not  so  different  today.  It  would  be 
possible  to  build  up  a  complete  modem  ethics  on  the 
theory  that  only  big  things  are  worth  while.  The 
millionaire's  dollars  are  still  counted  by  the  old 
decimal  system  based  originally  on  the  ten  fingers 
found  on  the  hands  of  primitive  man.  We  also  hold 
that  one  swallow  does  not  make  a  summer,  that  one 
kind  act  cannot  get  a  miser  into  heaven,  that  a  hope- 
less minority  cannot  elect  a  president.  In  matters  of 
education,  thoroughness  and  quantity  still  count.  He 
goes  farthest  who  knows  most  and  can  put  this  knowl- 
edge to  the  greatest  number  of  uses.  Many  of  our 
ordinary  moral  maxims  are  based  on  the  unconscious 
feeling  that  size  has  value.  Just  as  in  geometry  the 
whole  is  greater  than  the  part,  so  in  theories  of  gov- 
ernment the  State  is  considered  greater  and  of  greater 
value  than  the  individual.  In  politics  it  is  an  axiom 
that  the  majority  must  rule.  The  apparent  truism 
uttered  at  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  Era  to  the  effect 
that  it  is  better  for  one  man  to  die  than  for  a  whole 
people  to  perish,  has  permeated  whole  stretches  of 
our  ethical  life.  There  is  still  among  us  an  instinc- 
tive and  almost  primitive  regard  for  that  which  is 
big.  Many  of  us  never  get  beyond  the  ethics  of 
quantity. 

Some  of  the  most  sublime  acts  of  human  beings 
have  occurred  in  response  to  this  instinct  of  reverence 


Variety  of  Ideals 


for  that  which  is  bigger  than  us.  We  have  only  to 
think  of  the  host  of  martyrs  who  died  for  religion  and 
of  the  host  of  heroes  who  died  for  patriotism.  The 
sacrificial  aspect  of  this  quantitative  ethics  is  ter- 
rific. It  seems  as  if  the  race  has  had  to  go  through  a 
long  nightmare  of  vicarious  suffering  in  which  whole 
parts  of  humanity  were  ruthlessly  sacrificed  to 
others,  in  which  the  innocent  went  down  with  the 
guilty,  and  mighty  limbs  were  pruned  off,  let  us  hope, 
for  the  good  of  the  race.  We  owe  eternal  debts  of 
gratitude  to  countless  men  who  gave  their  lives  to 
swell  our  heritage  of  spiritual  riches,  but  there  has 
been  too  much  injustice  and  agony  in  the  whole  pro- 
cedure to  say  that  the  end  attained  has  justified  the 
means.  The  ethics  of  size  is  marked  by  sublimity, 
but  too  frequently  sublimity  is  only  a  name  for  the 
esthetic  side  of  awfulness  and  terror. 

There  are  still  other  forms  that  the  ethics  of  sublim- 
ity may  take.  Neither  martyrdom  nor  patriotism  is 
necessarily  the  final  form  of  what  the  worship  of 
greatness  can  give  us.  Greater  than  the  nation  is  the 
race,  and  already  certain  men  have  toiled  obscurely 
but  supremely  well  in  producing  works  of  benefit  to 
the  race.  The  ideal  of  a  human  brotherhood  that 
can  be  furthered  by  the  puny  efforts  of  a  single  per- 
son has  worked  like  wine  upon  the  human  spirit. 
There  have  been  universal  geniuses  whose  work  is 
plainly  rooted  in  a  feeling  of  solidarity  with  the 
larger  mankind  which  transcends  nations  and  ages. 


8  The  Control  of  Ideals 

There  have  been  men  of  all  time  whose  accomplish- 
ments are  imbedded  in  the  civilization  of  mankind, 
and  whose  names  live  on  in  the  choir  invisible  that 
never  dies. 

Bolder  still  and  more  imaginative  is  the  spirit  of 
man  when  it  discards  the  choir  invisible  of  mortal 
lives  to  find  refuge  in  immortality.  To  dream  of 
changing  corruptibility  into  incorruptibility,  of  put- 
ting on  life  everlasting  instead  of  life  precarious,  is 
but  a  venturesome  working  out  of  that  same  principle 
of  believing  only  in  that  which  is  big.  What  is  big- 
ger than  eternity;  what  is  greater  than  the  infinite? 
Seen  from  the  viewpoint  of  eternity,  huge  difficulties 
have  seemed  small,  tragedies  have  been  wiped  out, 
pain  has  been  overcome,  and  death  itself  has  been 
greeted  with  a  song.  It  is  ideals  of  this  fibre  that 
have  been  stronger  than  the  impulse  toward  self- 
preservation.  All  these  ideals  of  power,  of  grand- 
eur, and  of  sacrifice  have  been  especially  character- 
istic of  the  earlier  stages  of  the  life  of  the  race. 

More  modem  is  a  second  type  of  ideals  clustering 
around  the  notion  of  beauty.  Some  things  are  wor- 
shipped not  because  they  are  big  but  because  they  are 
beautiful.  Theirs  is  a  worship  not  bom  of  fear  but 
of  mother  love  and  of  the  mating  instinct.  The  basic 
ingredients  of  this  worship  are  pity,  compassion,  and 
adoration  rather  than  respect  and  awe.  The  cult  of 
beauty  has  become  universal,  because  mankind  now 
yearns  as  deeply  over  the  children  of  its  imagination 


Variety  of  Ideals 


as  it  yearns  over  its  physical  sons.  In  this  sphere  of 
the  ethics  of  beauty  the  lesser  ideals  find  their  home, 
and  often  for  being  the  lesser  they  are  loved  the 
more.  The  entire  realm  of  artists  and  the  artistic 
is  involved. 

An  artist  is  a  creator  of  beauty  and  there  are  really 
only  three  kinds  of  artists.  There  are  first  the  hum- 
bler artists  to  whom  no  one  gives  the  name  of  genius, 
but  who  nevertheless  are  of  the  lifeblood  of  the  race 
because  they  create  the  values  that  to  most  of  us  make 
life  worth  living.  The  mass  of  humanity  knows  how 
to  throw  the  transforming  light  of  the  imagination 
over  trifles.  Theirs  is  the  lesser  mythology  of  small 
ideals  of  the  sort  that  crowd  into  every  cranny  of  our 
waking  hours.  Theirs  are  the  personal  ideals.  The 
world  may  not  care  whether  a  baby  dies,  but  a  mother 
does  because  the  baby  is  her  own.  She  is  an  artist 
as  much  as  the  painter  of  immortal  pictures  is  an 
artist.  An  insignificant  mite  of  humanity  is  her 
paintbox,  whence  come  rainbows,  Rembrandts,  and 
undepictable  glories.  Between  grown-ups  and  chil- 
dren, between  men  and  women,  there  are  many  thou- 
sands of  little  things  much  bigger  than  the  solar  sys- 
tem; for  the  multitude  possesses  the  truly  artistic 
secret  of  making  little  things  look  big  and  big  things 
little.  To  a  poet  the  world  can  weigh  less  than  a 
pebble;  to  a  man  of  honour  death  is  more  insignifi- 
cant than  a  blow  on  the  cheek;  to  a  lover  a  glance  is 
worth  more  than  a  fortune.     The  world  is  full  of 


10  The  Control  of  Ideals 

such  miracles  in  which  beauty  triumphs  over  bigness. 
We  are  all  workers  in  perspective.  We  are  all  artists 
because  we  can  all  see  beauty,  and  the  least  of  us 
loves  the  visions  of  his  own  imagination.  Magic 
everyday  artistry  of  this  sort  cannot  be  practised 
alone;  it  is  the  work  of  the  masses. 

The  second  class  of  artists  are  the  men  many  of 
whom  have  become  famous  and  whose  names  have 
gone  down  in  the  history  of  artistic  achievement.  In- 
stead of  being  gregarious  they  dwell  somewhat  apart. 
They  deal  with  all  humanity,  either  the  people  now 
living  or  the  humanity  of  the  future,  in  the  same  in- 
timate and  heart  to  heart  way  as  the  ordinary  man 
deals  with  his  neighbour.  Their  hearts  are  for  the 
world.  They  woo  us  with  gifts  that  are  high  water 
marks  of  creation  in  the  various  fields  of  artistic 
endeavour.  They  cast  into  our  laps  jewels  of  beauty 
and  originality  for  which  the  adoration  of  multitudes 
is  but  a  spontaneous  return.  Without  them  we  should 
have  no  spiritual  luxuries. 

The  third  type  of  artist  is  the  man  who  lives  close 
to  the  multitude,  but  whose  mission  seems  to  be  the 
preaching  of  moral  ideals  of  an  exalted  order.  Such 
men  are  interested  in  the  things  which  interest  the 
multitude,  but  they  have  the  imagination  of  the  ex- 
ceptional artist.  The  result  is  that  they  make  us 
Apocalypses  and  Utopias.  They  are  the  spiritual 
architects  of  the  race  who  make  us  homesick  after 
the  unattainable.     They  may  be  condemned  as  fa- 


Variety  of  Ideals  11 

natics,  they  may  be  accepted  as  reformers,  they  may 
even  become  founders  of  religions ;  but  wherever  they 
are,  their  attempt  is  to  exalt  humanity,  to  elevate  the 
lowly,  to  promote  love  and  happiness,  and  somehow, 
somewhere  to  bring  about  a  paradise  on  earth. 

There  is  a  third  group  of  ideals  which  concerns  the 
worship  of  truth.  These  ideals  have  their  origin  in 
plain  curiosity  which  is  strong  even  in  some  animals. 
The  struggle  for  existence  has  forced  us  to  learn  to 
see  straight.  In  the  long  fight  upward,  it  has  often 
been  important  to  brush  all  fancies  aside  and  to  see 
things  as  they  inevitably  appear  to  us  in  the  daylight 
— not  as  we  want  them  to  be,  but  as  they  are.  In 
minds  of  scientific  bent  the  desire  for  unvarnished 
truth  may  rise  to  the  heights  of  a  passion. 

Curiosity  is  peculiar  in  that  it  has  no  norms,  makes 
no  demands,  does  not  ask  that  things  be  either  big  or 
beautiful;  it  only  wants  the  facts  whether  they  be 
tigly,  mean,  or  noble.  Under  this  heading  come  the 
ideals  of  science  and  of  all  impartial  investigation. 
Here  belong  the  many  ideals  that  have  to  do  with 
material  welfare  and  economic  improvement.  To  set 
our  house  in  order,  to  lessen  suffering,  to  increase  joy, 
to  make  us  more  human  and  more  humane,  all  that 
is  what  the  restless  search  for  facts  and  useful  infor- 
mation attempts  to  do. 

An  important  offshoot  of  the  love  of  truth  has  been 
the  creation  of  a  spirit  of  justice  in  the  world.  Jus- 
tice is  the  essence  of  impartiality  which  aims  at  fair 


12  The  Control  of  Ideals 

play  everywhere.  It  is  the  sum  total  of  the  world's 
common  sense,  which  in  turn  is  the  daylight  residue  of 
all  the  science  and  speculation  and  experience  of  the 
race.  We  are  not  bom  with  common  sense,  but  we 
have  it  thrust  upon  us  by  the  experience  of  our  fore- 
fathers. Common  sense  like  justice  comes  after  the 
conflict  of  passions  and  desires.  When  the  Romans 
had  conquered  the  then  known  world,  they  were  left 
with  diverse  and  strange  peoples  to  rule.  The  situa- 
tion called  for  an  extraordinary  fund  of  common 
sense.  This  the  Romans  had  and  the  result  was  law 
and  justice.  The  eff'ect  on  human  institutions  of  this 
spirit  of  justice  cannot  be  overestimated.  Without 
justice  there  would  be  no  fly-wheel  to  balance  the 
machine  of  human  ideals.  Curiosity  is  the  fount  of 
sanity,  common  sense,  and  tolerance. 

A  still  more  curious  off'shoot  of  the  worshipping  of 
the  ideals  of  truth  is  the  flower  of  renunciation.  The 
scientist  begins  by  attempting  to  suppress  the  emotions 
and  to  eliminate  the  personal  equation,  but  the  pes- 
simist ends  by  achieving  this  and  sighing  for  Nirvana. 
Many  strong  spirits  have  been  thus  aff'ected.  When 
life  holds  nothing  more,  when  ambition  fails,  when 
long  cherished  ideals  become  for  ever  impossible, 
when  through  suff"ering  the  light  of  day  darkens; 
then  sometimes  even  in  ordinary  individuals  a  mo- 
ment of  limitless  acquiescence  is  born.  Certain  rare 
souls  enjoy  these  moments  always.  For  them  the  ac- 
ceptance of  truth  prepares  the  way  for  the  empire 


Variety  of  Ideals  13 

of  death;  truth  turns  into  fate  and  the  keyword  to  the 
universe  is  resignation. 

But'  the  present  age  is  not  a  fatalistic  one.  Our 
notions  of  truth  are  less  lugubrious.  Modern  opti- 
mists take  a  more  cheerful  view  when  through  proph- 
ets of  pragmatism,  humanism,  and  creative  evolution, 
they  announce  the  world  of  truth  itself  to  be  largely 
a  fiction  of  man's  active  brain.  The  world  of  solid 
fact  is  but  a  collection  of  phenomena  that  in  the  long 
run  work  as  we  want  them  to  work.  According  to 
certain  profound  savants  of  mathematical  leanings,  it 
is  becoming  more  and  more  clear  that  the  whole  body 
of  modern  science  is  but  a  collection  of  formulas  that 
enable  us  to  manipulate  our  practical  world  in  such  a 
way  as  to  bring  about  results  useful  and  pleasant  to 
ourselves.  The  world  of  science  with  its  atom  and 
ether  and  perfect  laws  is  at  bottom  profoundly  imagi- 
native, and  perhaps  more  than  a  little  imaginary.  In 
the  last  analysis  it  may  turn  out  that  scientific  truth, 
like  our  other  imaginings,  is  to  a  large  extent  a  deep- 
seated  creation  of  our  own,  a  gradual  making  over  of 
the  world  to  suit  ourselves.  If  physical  laws  are  not 
infallibly  immutable,  the  philosopher's  stone  is  in 
sight.  Viewed  in  this  light  the  ideals  of  truth  are 
the  most  far-reaching  and  certainly  the  most  modern 
of  all. 

All  of  these  ideals  of  power  and  beauty  and  truth 
are  of  incalculable  importance  to  the  human  race.  If 
today  we  have  somewhat  outgrown  the  animals,  it  is 


14  The  Control  of  Ideals 


because  our  ideals  have  shown  us  the  way.  If  we 
lived  only  in  a  one-dimensional  world  of  things  as 
they  are,  we  should  never  change  and  never  grow 
up.  It  is  the  world  of  the  imagination  that  gives  us 
both  our  problems  and  our  civilization. 


CHAPTER  II 
ATTITUDE  TOWARD  IDEALS 

All  of  our  ideals  have  this  in  common  that  to  all 
intents  and  purposes  they  are  to  us  part  and  parcel 
of  that  outside  world  of  things  that  we  know  so  little 
and  dread  so  much.  They  come  to  us  from  the  great 
unknown,  like  the  air  we  breathe  and  the  storm  that 
destroys  our  crops.  Together  with  the  lightning  and 
the  sun  and  all  the  other  powers  of  life  and  death 
they  rule  us.  Like  invisible  giants  they  stand  beside 
and  over  us,  and  for  the  most  part  we  worship  them 
in  a  way  not  so  different  from  the  way  in  which  our 
forefathers  worshipped  idols.  Idols  also  fell  from 
the  clouds  or  came  to  us  from  we  knew  not  where. 
If  perchance  they  were  made  by  human  hands  they 
were  never  treated  as  such.  They  were  stiffly  in- 
scrutable beings  with  the  divine  right  to  rule  stamped 
upon  their  brows  and  mankind  was  ready  to  give  them 
the  unquestioned  faith  and  obedience  that  small  chil- 
dren give  to  their  parents.  We  do  the  same  to  our 
ideals.  ■ 

The  explanation  of  this  naive  conduct  is  not  dif- 
ficult to  give.     After  the  long  evolutionary  role  of 

quaking  before  a  nature  red  in  tooth  and  claw,  we 

15 


16  The  Control  of  Ideals 

continue  to  wear  the  same  frightened  air  toward  our 
new  worlds  of  the  imagination.  Great  fears  still  live 
within  us.  Old  habits  remain.  We  are  all  bom  wor- 
shippers, the  saint  in  his  world  of  the  sublime,  the 
artist  in  his  world  of  beauty,  the  scientist  in  his  world 
of  truth;  and  the  inveterate  tendency  is  to  go  on 
worshipping  whatever  ideals  are  set  before  us.  On 
the  world  as  in  primeval  times  we  first  dimly  en- 
countered it,  we  have  through  the  work  of  the  imagina- 
tion superimposed  a  world  of  our  own,  more  humane 
and  less  terrible  than  the  primitive  one;. and  now  we 
treat  this  world  of  our  own  quite  as  we  treated  that 
other  and  more  hostile  world  in  which  things  came  to 
us  grudgingly.  To  our  ancestors  the  external  world 
was  a  buzzing  confusion  of  dominions,  powers,  and 
spirits  to  be  appeased  by  blood  and  tears,  the  blood 
of  bullocks  preferably  to  our  own,  but  if  necessary 
also  the  latter;  and  in  this  day  and  age  things  have 
not  changed  materially,  for  just  as  their  idols  de- 
manded gifts  so  our  ideals  demand  sacrifices.  They 
would  not  be  considered  ideals  if  they  did  not! 
Whether  one  lives  for  family,  tribe,  state,  race, 
science,  or  Deity,  the  result  is  the  same — ^they  are  all 
ends  to  Which  we  dedicate  ourselves.  If  necessary, 
we  of  today  also  are  ready  to  make  the  supreme  sac- 
rifice; for  compared  with  ideals  it  is  considered  that 
the  individual  counts  as  naught.  The  devotion  ac- 
corded these  new  creatures  of  the  imagination  has  in 
it  hints  of  the  old  fanaticism  that  we  are  just  begin- 


Attitude  Toward  Ideals  17 

ning  to  weed  out  of  our  religions.  One  kind  of  in- 
tolerance has  not  yet  been  fully  done  away  with  before 
a  new  and  perhaps  more  deadly  sort  is  upon  us.  The 
hue  and  cry  for  sacrifices  has  passed  from  one  comer 
of  the  imagination  into  another. 

In  all  this  there  is  something  wrong.  Pan  and  the 
old  mythology  are  dead,  but  our  new  ideals  are  a  new 
mythology  whose  keeper  as  of  old  is  conscience;  and 
conscience,  the  great  accuser  both  of  self  and  others, 
never  changes.  It  has  always  needed  watching  with 
its  deep  dungeons,  seldom  aired,  in  which  dwells  the 
love  of  the  horrible.  Mankind  is  gruesomely  fasci- 
nated by  sacrifice  of  all  sorts,  and  unless  we  rein  in 
sharply  on  our  ingrained  tendencies,  some  of  our  new 
ideals  may  become  accepted  ground  for  that  old,  un- 
reasoning, racial  self-sacrifice  and  sublimation  of  suf- 
fering that  has  haunted  man  since  the  primitive  days 
when  cruelty  to  self  and  others  was  our  only  form  of 
sport.  From  the  habit  of  regarding  these  ideals  as 
strangers  from  another  world,  comes  an  undignified 
servility  in  our  conduct  towards  them,  a  blindness 
toward  their  true  meaning,  a  misapprehension  of  their 
possibilities,  and  a  total  failure  to  enter  the  doors 
that  these  new  gods  could  open  to  us.  Eventually  our 
wrong  attitude  may  lead  to  anesthetization,  gradual 
paralysis,  cessation  of  growth,  and  death.  But  none 
of  these  things  need  happen,  for  it  is  unnecessary  that 
to  our  own  gentle  children  we  should  accord  an  ex- 
treme worship  and  sacrifice  such  as  they  were  never 


18  The  Control  of  Ideals 

meant  to  receive.  We  are  not  alive  to  the  human 
origin  and  function  of  all  the  ideals  for  which  many 
so  willingly  give  up  even  their  lives. 

After  taking  great  strides  in  overcoming  such  pal- 
pable enemies  as  the  wild  beasts  of  the  forest  and  the 
wild  beasts  of  hunger,  cold,  and  disease,  we  now  enter 
upon  a  stage  of  existence  where  because  of  a  wrong 
attitude  which  we  adopt  our  greatest  enemies  are 
likely  to  become  our  own  ideals.  Just  as  highly 
imaginative  children  can  hardly  distinguish  between 
fancy  and  truth,  so  in  the  present  period  which  is 
still  the  youth  of  the  race,  we  do  not  always  distinguish 
between  our  own  beautiful  dreamworld  and  the  other 
world  of  our  physical  bodies.  We  confuse  the  human 
and  the  non-human.  We  forget  that  the  world  of 
our  precious  illusions  in  which  as  human  individuals 
we  live,  move,  and  have  our  being,  is  a  world  of  our 
own,  under  our  own  control  and  made  by  us,  though 
grafted  on  physical  stock.  Thus  in  making  our  ideals 
more  rigid  and  more  mandarinish  than  they  need  be 
we  render  them  all  extremely  dangerous.  Their 
tyranny  is  on  the  way  to  becoming  no  less  terrible  than 
the  tyranny  of  nature  which  punishes  all  transgress- 
ions by  death.  An  unsophisticated  attitude  toward 
ideals  may  end  by  changing  them  to  idols,  into  whose 
unconscious  and  despotic  hands  we  delegate  the  power 
of  life  and  death,  which  is  our  own  and  which  should 
never  be  wielded  by  anything  but  the  most  careful 
common  sense  and  wisdom.     After  all,  ideals,  our 


Attitude  Toward  Ideals  19 

human  ideals,  are  not  apparently  unchangeable  veri- 
ties like  the  sun,  moon,  and  stars;  they  are  merely 
the  latest  spiritual  fashions  worn  by  us  all  and  ex- 
tremely dear  to  us,  but  not  so  dear  that  we  remain 
supine  when  they  rise  up  and  slay  us.  They  are 
merely  our  discarded  eggshells  and  cocoons,  our 
changing  robes,  eventually  the  spots  of  colour  on  our 
wings  and  nothing  more.  This  is  not  a  disparage- 
ment of  ideals — they  are  a  priceless  heritage — 
it  is  merely  a  warning  of  danger.  Our  ideals  are 
dangerous  because  in  reverencing  them  to  the  extent 
of  being  willing  to  die  for  them,  we  make  our  own 
ideals  our  executioners. 

At  a  time  when  hosts  of  men  have  died  at  random  in 
defence  of  their  ideals,  it  is  fitting  that  we  should  ask 
ourselves  why  it  is  that  ideals  run  thicker  than  blood. 
It  is  time  to  render  articulate  the  reasons  why  millions 
voluntarily  die.  It  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  war 
is  a  good  thing  to  get  rid  of,  but  perhaps  war,  or 
rather  the  roots  of  war,  are  dearer  to  the  hearts  of 
each  of  us  than  we  suspect.  Making  war  impossible 
is  a  personal  and  painful  matter  because  it  involves  a 
tearing  at  the  roots  of  age-old  habits;  it  involves  a 
change  of  attitude  toward  ideals,  than  which  on  earth 
no  other  thing  is  dearer  to  us.  Each  of  us  will  have 
to  contribute  his  share  toward  the  formation  of  new 
habits  which  generally  are  not  learned  except  as  the 
result  of  aeons  of  experience.  History  is  full  of  mis- 
takes that  apparently  have  had  to  be  made  over  and 


20  The  Control  of  Ideals 

over  again,  before  we  finally  learned  to  overcome 
them.  Perhaps  in  the  end  we  shall  see  that  wars, 
even  the  latest  idealistic  wars,  are  due  to  a  confusion 
which  time  and  suffering  alone  could  make  completely 
clear  to  us. 

It  is  easy  to  see  how  our  forefathers  made  a  mis- 
take in  worshipping  idols  of  stone,  or  in  rendering 
homage  to  one  of  the  elements  such  as  fire,  earth,  or 
water,  but  the  mistake  is  worth  studying;  for  how  do 
we  know  that  we  have  even  now  completely  outgrown 
their  habits?  Our  ancestors  came  to  worship  the 
elements,  or  something  that  represented  them,  be- 
cause these  elements  are  of  tremendous  importance  in 
human  life.  Earth,  air,  fire,  and  water  are  indispen- 
sable to  life;  and  because  we  cannot  live  without  them 
our  remote  antecedents  perhaps  made  the  na'ive  and 
natural  inference  that  these  elements  were  the  great- 
est thing  on  earth,  to  whom  we  owed  everything,  and 
therefore  ought  to  be  willing  to  sacrifice  everything. 
Yet  such  an  attitude  is  the  result  of  a  fundamental  con- 
fusion. The  mistake  consists  in  making  an  end  out  of 
a  necessity,  a  summum  bonum  out  of  a  sine  qua  non. 
There  is  a  radical  difference  between  a  condition  with- 
out which  a  thing  cannot  exist,  and  the  end  for  which 
it  exists.  The  elements  may  be  indispensable  for 
life,  but  that  does  not  make  them  the  aim  and  end  of 
life.  We  cannot  live  without  food,  yet  we  do  not  live 
to  eat.  The  flower  that  grows  in  the  mud  is  admired 
for  its  hue  and  its  fragrance,  and  not  for  the  indis- 


Attitude  Toward  Ideals  21 

pensable  ooze  in  which  it  grows.  Perhaps  we  are 
committing  a  similar  error  with  respect  to  ideals,  with- 
out which  we  cannot  live  and  which  seem  of  such 
transcendent  importance  to  us;  but  here  also  because 
ideals  make  life  worth  while  is  in  itself  no  reason  why 
they  should  be  worth  more  than  life  itself.  It  will  at 
least  be  necessary  to  show  that  there  is  nothing  in 
place  of  ideals  that  can  make  our  life  worth  while  or, 
better  still,  it  ought  to  be  made  clear  that  in  taking 
a  less  ponderous  attitude  toward  ideals  we  can,  with- 
out losing  any  of  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 
ideals,  bring  about  a  state  of  affairs  in  which  it  will 
never  be  necessary  to  lay  down  our  lives  for  them. 
We  can  begin  to  take  toward  them  the  same  attitude 
that  we  take  toward  food,  than  which  nothing  is  more 
necessary  to  our  mortal  bodies.  Our  ideals  might  be 
considered  a  kind  of  mental  or  spiritual  food,  and 
then  here  also  it  may  some  day  dawn  upon  us  that 
we  eat  to  live  and  not  the  other  way  around.  By  giv- 
ing us  constant  indigestion,  life  may  yet  teach  us  not 
to  be  gluttons  over  ideals. 

A  different  attitude  is  possible.  Instead  of  con- 
sidering ideals  superior  to  mortals,  let  us  consider 
them  the  creation  of  mortals.  Let  them  be  our  solace, 
not  our  fetish;  our  servants,  not  our  masters.  They 
may  be  the  supreme  tools  for  enriching  our  earthly 
existence,  but  for  that  very  reason  we  cannot  afford  to 
let  them  tyrannize  over  us  and  thus  by  condemning 
us  to  death  defeat  the  very  ends  that  they  are  suited 


22  The  Control  of  Ideals 

to  accomplish.  They  should  be  humanized.  Every 
now  and  then  mankind  has  found  it  necessary  to  in- 
ject a  glint  of  Homeric  humour  into  its  theology,  lest 
the  gods,  who  are  the  embodiment  of  our  highest 
ideals,  begin  to  play  with  us  instead  of  we  with  them. 
Now  and  again  we  have  even  exchanged  our  gods  for 
others  more  humane.  No  disaster  followed.  Man 
can  without  danger  regard  his  own  creations  with  a 
quiet  sense  of  mastery,  and  when  necessary  he  can 
reach  out  and  destroy  his  handiwork  rather  than  have 
it  destroy  him.  It  is  possible  to  laugh  a  little  at 
our  own  ideals  and  hold  them  no  less  dear. 

Of  course  this  attitude  can  be  taken  only  by  a  some- 
what advanced  race  that  has  recovered  from  the  first 
phases  of  hero  worship  and  uncritical  romance  so 
often  associated  with  youth.  It  may  be  that  we  are 
not  yet  grown  up  enough  to  take  this  attitude,  but 
beyond  a  doubt  this  business  of  endless  human  sacri- 
fices, even  to  our  most  holy  ideals,  is  a  thing  to  be  out- 
grown. In  the  past  wars  may  have  been  necessary  and 
we  shall  never  cease  to  honour  those  who  laid  down 
their  lives  for  others;  but,  since  by  common  agree- 
ment the  time  has  come  to  make  an  effort  to  avoid 
all  future  wars,  it  has  become  essential  that  we  form 
a  clear  notion  of  the  kind  of  ideals  that  must  underlie 
the  ethics  of  a  post-bellum  world;  or,  if  it  is  not 
merely  a  question  of  changing  an  ideal  or  two  and  it 
should  turn  out  that  it  is  our  entire  attitude  toward 
ideals  that  must  be  changed,  then  that  fact  must  be 


Attitude  Toward  Ideals  23 

blazed  forth  clearly.  The  full  implications  of  this 
new,  universal  desire  which  strikes  at  the  heart  of  all 
our  old  ideals  must  be  unravelled.  Without  spend- 
ing overmuch  time  on  the  details  of  the  external  ma- 
chinery that  will  aid  in  doing  away  with  wars,  ethics 
should  for  the  present  concern  itself  with  the  foun- 
dation on  which  all  this  machinery  rests,  with  the 
dream  of  a  post-bellum  era  itself,  and  its  reception  in 
the  mind  of  the  individual  where  it  must  take  root 
and  eventually  fight  for  its  life  in  competition  with 
practically  the  sum  total  of  our  present  ideals.  Ac- 
cepting a  world  without  wars  will  not  be  as  easy  as 
many  people  think.  The  anti-bellum  complex,  which 
is  just  beginning  to  emerge  into  the  consciousness  of 
the  race,  is  much  more  subversive  than  is  generally 
supposed.  The  new  regime  may  yet  turn  out  to  be 
the  Jupiter  that  Saturn  could  not  swallow. 

Getting  rid  of  war,  for  one  thing,  is  not  a  simple 
matter  of  pacificm  or  an  absolute  refusal  to  fight. 
Removing  war  by  refusing  to  fight  a  murderous  foe  is 
like  curing  dyspepsia  by  refusing  to  eat.  To  be  sure, 
never  eating  anything  gets  rid  of  all  the  evils  oc- 
casioned by  eating,  but  the  insuperable  objection  is 
that  it  gets  rid  of  all  the  benefits  as  well.  The  pacifist 
who  says  that  he  would  rather  die  than  fight  is  no 
different  from  the  militarist  who  would  rather  die 
than  give  in.  In  principle  their  conduct  is  of  the 
same  kind.  They  sacrifice  themselves  to  different 
ideals,  but  that  does  not  change  the  nature  of  the 


24  The  Control  of  Ideals 

sacrifice.  Again  it  is  not  the  choice  between  one  or 
the  other  ideal  that  counts,  but  the  whole  matter  of 
ideals  and  our  attitude  toward  them  is  involved.  By 
his  drastic  methods  the  pacifist  is  likely  to  rid  himself 
at  once  both  of  the  horrors  of  war  and  of  the  bless- 
ings of  peace.  He  applies  the  method  of  last  resort, 
submission  to  an  untimely  death,  thus  accepting  the 
very  thing  that  he  is  seeking  to  avoid.  In  one  respect 
life  is  like  a  bad  dream.  There  is  always  one  way 
out.  In  dreams  it  is  waking  up;  in  life  it  is  death. 
But  death  is  no  solution.  Genuine  evil  is  overcome 
by  growth,  and  not  by  nonresistance.  Even  kindness 
will  not  do  it;  it  takes  courage  and  foresight,  es- 
pecially the  latter. 

War  belongs  to  the  class  of  evils  that  cannot  be 
cured  but  only  prevented.  Its  contrariety  lies  in  the 
fact  that  it  is  incurable  but  not  nonpreventable.  It 
is  like  a  virulent  disease  that  must  be  stopped  before 
it  gets  a  start,  or  it  cannot  be  stopped  at  all.  Our 
only  safety  from  the  fatal  war  bacillus  lies  in  our 
ability  to  ward  it  off;  once  it  is  upon  us,  nothing  can 
prevent  a  fatal  ending.  The  presence  of  war  means 
that  we  have  allowed  ourselves  to  get  into  a  situation 
in  which  it  is  no  longer  a  question  whether  lives  are 
to  be  forfeited,  but  merely  a  question  of  whose  life 
is  to  be  forfeited,  our  own  or  that  of  the  enemy.  In 
the  past  such  situations  have  frequently  been  unavoid- 
able. In  dealing  with  robber  nations,  or  with  un- 
civilized hordes,  wars  cannot  be  avoided.     A  certain 


Attitude  Toward  Ideals  25 

amount  of  civilization  must  precede  any  post-bellum 
ethics,  just  as  a  certain  amount  of  medical  science 
must  precede  any  cure  for  cancer. 

Before  wars  can  be  quite  done  away  with  there 
must  be  added  to  our  training  a  certain  amount  of 
harmless  sophistication,  an  influx  of  that  sober  second 
sight  that  follows  hard  experience.  In  a  world  in 
which  people  only  say,  "Come,  let  us  fight  it  out," 
and  never  say,  "Come,  let  us  reason  together,*'  agree- 
ment is  impossible,  and  there  is  no  alternative  to  a 
brute  force  regime.  At  the  same  time  in  a  world 
where  reasoning  is  taken  too  seriously,  in  a  world 
composed  of  conflicting  ideals  tenaciously  held  by 
fanatics  all  more  than  willing  to  die  in  defence  of 
their  credo,  harmony  is  equally  impossible.  A  clar- 
ified common  sense  such  as  intervened  to  separate 
ecclesiastical  questions  from  civil  life,  and  thus  put 
an  end  to  religious  intolerance,  must  once  more  step 
in.  The  era  of  taboos,  of  sacred  bulls,  of  Napoleons 
and  Alexanders,  of  Crusades  and  the  Church  militant, 
are  all  alike  part  and  parcel  of  that  muscular  age  of 
force  that  should  be  put  away  with  other  childish 
things.  If  this  great  fight  against  windmills  is  ever 
to  come  to  an  end,  we  must  realize  that  we  are  now 
facing  a  new  era,  and  that  what  was  food  for  the 
grub  and  the  pupa  will  not  be  food  for  the  butterfly. 
There  must  be  a  change  of  front.  In  the  former  era 
there  prevailed  the  law  of  the  jungle ;  but  post-bellum 
ethics,  instead  of  once  more  restating  the  law  of  the 


26  The  Control  of  Ideals 

jungle,  should  try  to  decipher  the  new  tables  from 
Sinai  that  are  to  prevail  to  the  post-bellum  period 
and  whose  laws,  I  am  assured,  are  to  be  based,  first 
upon  a  new  conception  of  the  sacredness  of  human 
life  and  secondly  upon  a  new  attitude  toward  ideals. 


CHAPTER  III 
ASSIMILATION  OF  IDEALS 

One  difficulty  in  connection  with  our  ideals  is  that 
there  are  so  many  of  them  and  that  they  are  all 
different.  There  are  enough  to  lead  us  in  a  hundred 
ways  at  once.  Patriotism,  freedom,  immortality,  the 
race,  chivalry,  honour,  beauty,  art,  godliness,  science, 
truth  and  self-sacrifice  may  all  be  splendid  ideals,  but 
they  cannot  all  be  followed  at  the  same  time.  A 
choice  must  be  made.  The  more  whole-heartedly  any 
single  ideal  is  pursued,  the  more  necessary  it  will  be 
to  sacrifice,  not  to  say  oppose,  some  of  the  others ;  for 
no  amount  of  worship  can  prevent  our  ideals  from 
clashing. 

Formerly  when  men  fought  they  fought  for  con- 
quest, but  in  recent  centuries  men  have  fought  chiefly 
because  of  conflicts  between  their  ideals.  The  ground 
is  continually  being  prepared  for  just  such  wars. 
Men  inherit  their  religion,  their  country,  their  ideals 
of  liberty;  and  they  are  more  willing  to  fight  for 
these  things  than  they  are  for  their  money.  Economic 
interpretations  of  history  to  the  contrary,  in  this  age 
of  deep-rooted  romance  men  do  not  easily  give  up 

their  lives  for  economic  reasons,  while  on  the  other 

27 


28  The  Control  of  Ideals 

hand  death  in  defence  of  an  ideal  has  become  a  noble 
commonplace.  Behind  the  self-immolation  of  today- 
there  always  lurks  an  ideal,  if  only  the  ideal  of  duty, 
and  one  of  the  most  frequent  reasons  why  men  fight 
is  because  they  are  defending  different  ideals.  It  is 
by  this  time  a  recognized  doctrine  that  the  modern 
man's  burden  is  not  so  much  a  choice  between  good 
and  evil  as  a  choice  between  irreconcilable  goods. 
Man  cannot  serve  two  masters  even  though  both  be 
irreproachable.  Thus  arise  wars  between  such  things 
as  science  and  art,  or  between  art  and  religion.  The 
artist,  the  scientist,  and  the  saint  may  each  be  sincere, 
yet  it  is  hard  for  them  to  get  along  with  each  other; 
and  if  this  is  true  of  individuals  it  is  even  more  true 
of  groups.  Races  and  peoples  grow  to  love  different 
types  of  ideals  which  each  may  be  fine  in  their  own 
way,  but  which  consistently  followed  lead  to  clashes 
that  too  frequently  can  be  settled  only  by  arms. 
After  civilization's  fight  with  barbarism,  comes  the 
more  perplexing  fight  between  different  civilizations. 
Just  as  a  plethora  of  varied  and  inharmonious 
foods  can  give  rise  to  indigestion  in  the  individual, 
so  the  clashing  of  many  ideals  may  cause  serious  and 
even  fatal  disturbances  in  the  body  politic.  Spiritual 
food  like  ordinary  food  must  on  the  whole  be  diges- 
tible. Ideals  must  build  up  rather  than  destroy  the 
human  race,  or  there  is  something  wrong  with  our 
mental  diet.  The  sum  total  of  our  ideals  must 
stimulate  healthy  growth,  and  in  that  sense  our  ideals 


Assimilation  of  Ideals  29 

are  true  ideals  only  if  they  work  together  to  produce 
a  wholesome  result.     They  must  be  assimilable. 

The  process  of  assimilation  as  applied  to  ideals 
is  a  continuous  one,  but  for  the  sake  of  convenience 
a  number  of  steps  may  be  made  out  just  as  the  process 
of  digestion,  although  uninterrupted,  can  also  be 
divided  into  various  stages.  Ideals  spring  from  the 
imagination,  and  if  they  survive  at  all,  they  soon  be- 
come familiar  to  a  number  of  people  and  gain  enough 
currency  to  be  called  ideas.  When  still  further  pop- 
ularized, the  original  ideal  may  become  a  doctrine. 
Accepted  doctrine  becomes  law,  and  laws  are  em- 
bodied in  institutions  and  eventually  into  the  social 
habits  and  customs  of  men.  Ideals  end  up  by  enter- 
ing into  the  very  fabric  of  our  civilization  and  even 
of  our  unconscious  life. 

A  large  part  of  the  history  of  philosophy  is  the 
history  of  successful  ideals  conceived  and  expounded 
by  exceptional  thinkers.  Philosophical  truths  consist 
largely  of  ideals  concerning  the  aim,  destiny,  and 
nature  of  man,  by  which  they  hope  to  render  man- 
kind more  satisfied  and  less  unhappy.  It  is  eternal 
sustenance  rather  than  eternal  truth  that  philosophers 
are  after.  They  find  us  food  that  works  the  miracle 
of  adding  cubits  to  our  racial  stature,  thus  establish- 
ing stages  of  growth  that  can  never  be  undone.  Even- 
tually our  ideals  enrich  the  lifeblood  of  the  race. 
Thus  the  Greeks,  in  their  initial  fumbling  after  some 
sort  of  a  solution  for  the  problems  of  the  universe, 


30 The  Control  of  Ideals    

hit  upon  the  notion  of  elements  which  were  supposed 
to  be  the  prime  substance  out  of  which  all  things  were 
made;  and  we  have  never  got  rid  of  that  idea. 
Atoms,  ether,  and  the  substrate  are  still  with  us. 
Plato  launched  the  notion  of  an  invisible  world,  an 
ideal  but  quintessential  replica  of  this  one;  and  there 
still  stand  the  great  religions  of  the  world,  none  of 
which  were  great  until  they  had  assimilated  Plato's 
idea.  Aristotle  among  other  things  injected  into  our 
life  the  idea  of  logic.  Who  ever  heard  of  logical 
thinking  before  Aristotle,  and  we  may  be  sure  we 
shall  never  get  through  hearing  about  it  after  Aris- 
totle. Logic  means  order,  and  order  leads  to  classi- 
fication, and  the  art  of  classification  is  endless.  By 
the  merest  introductory  application  of  his  logic  to 
the  then  existing  world  of  knowledge,  Aristotle  created 
a  number  of  sciences  that  today  still  have  an  in- 
definite course  to  run.  Descartes  started  the  notion 
that  mathematics  could  be  applied  to  everything. 
There  arose  the  first  span  of  mathematical  science 
with  its  lines  now  running,  not  from  coast  to  coast, 
but  from  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to  the  remotest  star. 
Many  a  man  is  still  working  at  the  Cartesian  dream. 
Locke,  Hume,  and  Berkeley  said  things  about  the 
limitations  of  human  understanding  that  have  now 
become  commonplaces  in  our  everyday  life.  Thus 
new  ideals  and  new  ideas  are  continually  penetrating 
our  conscious  life,  coming  often  from  we  know  not 
where,  but  enlarging  our  outlook,  multiplying  our 


Assimilation  of  Ideals  31 

thoughts,  adding  to  our  enjoyments,  increasing  our 
hopes  and  happiness,  and  yet  making  themselves  at 
home  so  quietly  that  we  sometimes  think  that  they 
were  never  new.  Sometimes  a  number  of  men  at 
different  periods  take  up  the  same  idea,  such  as  evolu- 
tion, and  gradually  bring  it  to  a  state  of  fruition 
where  scientific  verification  is  the  only  thing  needed 
to  make  it  enter  into  the  daily  life  of  every  one  of  us. 
Traces  of  evolutionistic  theory  hark  back  to  the 
Greeks,  and  long  before  modern  science  offered  its 
aid,  evolutionary  doctrine  had  reached  a  point  where 
verification  was  as  easy  as  turning  a  telescope  on  to  a 
star  after  a  mathematician  tells  you  just  where  it  is 
to  be  found.  In  modern  times  James  started  pragma- 
tism. The  end  is  not  yet.  Hegel  with  a  difficult  yet 
powerful  jargon  began  to  hammer  away  at  the  deifica- 
tion of  the  political  State.  This  combined  with  cer- 
tain other  teachings  in  which  men  were  enjoined  to 
be  hard  to  the  point  of  onesidedness,  started  something 
that  all  the  Allies  have  barely  succeeded  in  stopping 
by  main  force.  The  late  war  is  an  illustration  of 
ideals  clashing  violently  enough  to  produce  a  cata- 
clysm. The  point  is  that  almost  any  ideal  can  get 
started,  but  that  the  ensemble  does  not  always  work 
out  harmoniously.  The  world  can  exist  after  a 
fashion  on  all  sorts  of  ideals  and  dreams,  until  there 
comes  a  time  when  the  potpourri  produces  indigestion 
acute  enough  to  embitter  the  taste  of  certain  ideals 
for  ever.     Then  the  task  becomes  to  rediet  ourselves 


32  The  Control  of  Ideals 

and  to  study  anew  the  whole  subject  of  mental  nu- 
trition. 

In  another  respect  ideals  are  not  unlike  the  food  we 
eat.  Foods  should  not  disagree,  but  at  the  same  time 
they  should  not  become  monotonous.  It  is  the  same 
with  ideals.  Too  many  violently  discordant  ideals 
spoil  the  harmony  of  life,  but  at  the  same  time  there 
is  no  single  ideal  that  is  a  panacea  for  all  ills.  Life 
is  too  complex  for  so  simple  a  solution.  The  variety 
in  our  ideals  should  neither  be  absent  nor  be  over- 
done. Ideals  are  like  breakfast  foods  that  pall,  like 
crops  that  need  rotating,  like  cosmic  jokes  that  can 
be  told  but  once.  They  must  be  easily  assimilable 
and  that  means  that  they  must  be  harmonious  enough 
to  be  digested  and  varied  enough  to  be  stimulating. 

And  even  if  we  should  be  well  supplied  with  ideals 
both  harmonious  and  varied,  there  always  remains 
the  danger  that  we  consider  these  pleasant  ideals  the 
aim  and  end  of  all  existence.  To  consider  our  food, 
even  perfect  mental  food,  of  greater  value  than  the 
life  that  it  supports,  is  to  place  ourselves  back  among 
the  animals  that  without  compunction  eat  each  other, 
and  thus  place  themselves  on  the  same  level  with  their 
food.  Many  an  animal  lives  to  eat,  but  we  no  longer 
consider  ourselves  animals,  although  the  habit  that  we 
have  outgrown  in  the  flesh  still  troubles  our  spirit. 
Physical  cannibals  are  no  longer  tolerated  but  mental 
cannibals  abound;  for  a  race  that  inculcates,  in  the 
individuals  composing  it,  a  habit  of  dying  for  the 


Assimilation  of  Ideals  33 

Ideals  of  that  race  thereby  declares  itself  to  be  of  no 
greater  worth  than  its  own  mental  food.  In  fact  in 
saying  that  ideals  are  worth  more  than  life,  we  hold 
ourselves  less  dear  than  we  do  our  spiritual  food, 
thus  selling  our  unique  and  only  birthright  for  a  mess 
of  pottage.  The  result  is  that  just  as  animals  cannot 
rise  superior  to  the  world  of  the  senses  into  the  world 
of  the  imagination,  so  a  being,  that  does  not  rise 
superior  to  the  world  of  its  own  imaginings,  cannot 
rise  to  dominion  over  the  creations  of  the  human  spirit 
into  domains  of  greater  creativity  than  ever.  By  set- 
ting life  beneath,  instead  of  over,  our  ideals  we  check 
human  development;  for  to  cherish  any  ideal  above 
all  else,  means  that  we  accept  the  enjoyment  of  that 
ideal  as  the  ultimate  desire  of  human  life  beyond 
which  we  do  not  care  to  go.  To  a  creature  capable  of 
unmeasured  development,  that  cannot  be  other  than 
the  cardinal  sin. 

Yet  it  is  easy  to  see  that  unless  this  new  and  infinite 
value  is  placed  upon  human  life  by  the  consent  of 
all  or  at  least  of  a  vast  majority,  the  sacrifice  of  life 
to  our  ideals  must  inevitably  go  on.  It  is  only  when 
we  rise  superior  to  our  ideals  that  freedom  is  at- 
tained. Just  as  independence  of  the  world  of  the 
senses  gave  man  an  undreamed  of  freedom  to  develop 
a  world  of  ideals,  to  which  now  in  turn  man  shows 
symptoms  of  enslavement,  so  independence  of  this 
world  of  settled  ideals,  which  are  fast  becoming  fixed 
ideas,  will  give  rise  to  a  new  liberty  setting  free  latent 


34  The  Control  of  Ideals 

capabilities  and  new  creative  powers.  It  is  only  when 
we  cease  to  overvalue  our  jumbled  ideals  that  we  can 
begin  peacefully  to  arrange  them  into  hierarchies  with 
die  most  important  ones  on  top,  and  no  conflict  any- 
where along  the  line.  This  task  requires  a  clearness 
of  vision  that  we  do  not  yet  possess.  Once  we  learn 
that  ideals  are  not  to  be  fought  over  like  bones,  but 
rather  to  be  equitably  distributed,  each  ideal  to  the 
group  or  nation  that  can  best  develop  it,  there  arises 
a  possibility  that  new  eras  of  uninterrupted  prosperity 
and  spiritual  growth  will  ensue. 

The  reward  of  a  well  balanced  diet  is  growth,  and 
the  process  of  growth  that  follows  the  right  use  of 
ideals  is  more  akin  to  mental  than  to  physical  growth. 
Physical  growth  reaches  a  point  where  it  stops  and 
seems  content  merely  to  hold  its  own.  A  man  at 
twenty  may  be  physically  mature,  although  his  mind 
may  have  just  started  growing.  Mental  growth  can 
and  should  go  on  as  long  as  there  is  life.  Life  is 
growth.  In  the  process  of  development  more  knowl- 
edge and  more  interests  can  always  be  assimilated; 
for  when  old  ideas  are  assimilated  there  is  always  a 
hunger  and  a  need  for  more;  and  in  this  respect  the 
collective  mind  of  man  which  makes  for  civilization  is 
in  no  essential  diff'erent  from  the  mind  of  the  in- 
dividual. Without  interests  a  man  dies;  without 
vision  a  people  perishes.  It  is  not  sufficient  that  our 
ideals  be  harmonious  and  varied;  they  must  also  be 
continually  replaced  by  better  ones. 


Assimilation  of  Ideals  35 

The  aim  of  ideals  is  growth  and  growth  should  go 
on  for  ever.  If  it  stops  decay  sets  in.  It  is  fatal  to 
reach  a  point  where  we  say,  "This  is  enough;  our 
present  ideals  suffice  and  we  shall  never  give  them 
up."  As  well  say,  "The  innocent  age  of  childhood  is 
ideal,  let  us  never  grow  any  older."  Whatever  both 
as  a  race  and  as  individuals  we  may  do,  we  certainly 
do  not  stand  still.  "An  instinct  within  us  that  reaches 
and  towers"  demands  development;  and  our  only  sal- 
vation as  human  beings  is  that  we  found  a  way  to 
keep  on  growing  mentally  after  our  bodies  had 
stopped  dead  in  their  tracks.  Some  people  have 
promulgated  the  doctrine  that  life  is  essentially  a  bal- 
ance between  two  factors,  such  as  an  inner  principle 
and  an  outer  environment,  and  that  when  this  state  of 
balance  is  reached  there  remains  merely  the  unalloyed 
bliss  of  maintaining  the  status  quo.  That  doctrine  is 
a  mirage,  the  result  of  imperfect  insight.  Life  may 
be  an  adjustment,  but  certainly  not  an  adjustment  of 
this  quiescent,  Utopian  sort.  Never  will  we  reach  a 
point  where  we  can  be  perfectly  content  with  just  ex- 
actly what  we  have  and  not  one  iota  more.  We  are 
cast  in  different  mould.  We  live,  move,  and  have  an 
eternal  becoming.  Not  realizing  this,  has  been  the 
cause  of  countless  false  Utopias  in  which  the  life  of 
man  is  pictured  as  a  painted  ship  upon  a  painted 
ocean.  The  only  alternative  to  life  or  movement  of 
some  sort  is  death,  whose  harbinger  is  ennui,  epito- 
mized by  Schopenhauer  as  the  stage  where  men  who 


36  The  Control  of  Ideals 

have  "cast  off  all  other  burdens,  become  a  burden  to 
themselves."  This  state  of  ennui,  or  incipient  decay, 
can  be  warded  off  only  by  continuous  growth  which 
refuses  to  come  to  a  stop  until  halted  by  death. 

In  the  past  there  may  have  been  long  periods  when 
the  growth  of  the  race  seemed  to  have  stopped,  but 
generally  such  periods  are  immediately  followed  by 
a  spring  forward.  One  such  advance  occurred  in  the 
transition  from  animal  to  man,  from  unconsciousness 
or  semiconsciousness  to  self -consciousness.  Another 
occurred  about  the  sixth  century  B.C.,  when  we  find 
a  general  awakening  with  prophets  prophesying 
everywhere  and  preparing  the  way,  among  other 
things,  for  the  coming  of  Greek  civilization  shortly 
thereafter.  The  rise  of  Christianity  was  another  out- 
burst. Another  was  the  Renaissance,  and  still  an- 
other is  the  world  war  with  its  recasting  of  nations 
in  the  midst  of  which  we  are  today. 

The  extent  of  our  present  leap  forward  will  depend 
upon  ourselves.  It  will  depend  on  how  well  we 
understand  what  is  happening,  on  how  deeply  our 
insight  penetrates,  and  on  how  thoroughly  we  grasp 
ahead  of  time  just  what  the  possibilities  are,  and  thus 
act  not  blindly  but  with  a  full  foreknowledge  of  what 
we  are  trying  to  accomplish.  The  biggest  step  ever 
made  was  that  first  long  one  in  which  self -conscious- 
ness was  established,  and  the  first  great  declaration  of 
independence  of  nature  was  made.  A  somewhat  sim- 
ilar new  epoch  can  be  evoked  at  present.     Just  as  in 


Assimilation  of  Ideals  37 

the  past  man  nearly  perished  by  being  engulfed  in 
physical  nature,  and  then  achieved  his  independence 
by  waking  up  to  a  consciousness  of  self,  so  now  signs 
are  not  wanting  that  man  is  once  more  mistakenly 
ready  to  engulf  himself  in  a  world  of  ideals  and 
imagination,  and  that  again  the  only  thing  that  will 
save  him  is  a  new  volte-face  and  a  new  awakening  to 
even  deeper  levels  of  individual  self-consciousness. 
The  danger  of  being  engulfed  is  by  no  means  il- 
lusory. The  fact  that  we  are  drifting  into  an  ac- 
cepted creed  whose  main  tenet  is  that  self-sacrifice, 
even  of  masses  counted  by  millions,  is  commendable 
— provided  the  sacrifice  be  to  a  worthy  ideal — is  in  it- 
self enough  to  cripple  us-  back  into  the  animal  stage. 
Instead  of  getting  together  to  cultivate  ideals  men  kill 
each  other  for  ideals  and  use  the  very  imagination 
which  alone  can  give  them  these  ideals  for  inventing 
fearful  arms  with  which  to  spread  annihilation;  and 
the  point  is  that  when  the  imagination  of  man  sets  out 
to  find  new  engines  of  destruction  it  enters  a  by  no 
means  endless  corridor.  At  any  time  in  the  near  fu- 
ture the  work  in  this  restricted  field  may  be  com- 
pleted, and  we  shall  have  at  our  disposal  absolutely 
unopposable  mechanical  means  of  destroying  at  will 
either  the  whole  race  or  any  part  of  it.  At  that  stage 
ideals  will  have  rendered  themselves  so  dangerous  that 
against  the  conflicts  they  engender  there  will  be  no 
other  defence  than  that  of  self-control.  Against  that 
day  it  behooves  us  to  prepare  beforehand,  for  racial 


38  The  Control  of  Ideals 

self-control  is  not  learned  in  a  day  or  in  a  year. 
Within  this  margin,  which  is  no  one  knows  how  small, 
it  is  wise  for  us  to  declare  our  independence  of  ideals. 
Instead  of  perishing  in  the  welter  of  our  own  creation, 
we  must  bring  this  world  of  our  imagination  to  order 
and  use  it  for  our  own  enrichment,  just  as  we  do  the 
world  we  tread  with  our  feet.  It  is  time  to  enjoy 
instead  of  fear  the  world  of  our  imagination.  It  is 
time  to  live  not  for  but  by  our  own  ideals. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  SURVIVAL  OF  IDEALS 

Until  such  time  as  we  learn  to  regulate  the  products 
of  our  own  imagination,  the  weeding  out  of  undesir- 
able ideals  must  be  left  largely  to  the  random  struggle 
for  existence  which  rages  among  them  as  it  does  among 
all  living  phenomena.  It  may  seem  strange  to  con- 
sider ideals  as  belonging  to  the  world  of  living  things, 
but  that  is  exactly  where  they  should  be  placed. 
They  are  living  parts  of  living  human  beings.  They 
are  our  future  selves,  both  possible  and  impossible, 
struggling  for  adoption  into  the  world  of  solid  flesh; 
and  until  these  untamed  psychological  entities  are 
brought  under  the  yoke  of  human  guidance,  chance 
instead  of  wisdom  will  rule  among  them,  and  the  sur- 
vival of  ideals  will  follow  the  law  of  the  biologically 
strong  rather  than  that  of  the  humanly  beneficial. 

It  will  be  worth  while  to  go  into  more  detail  as  to 
just  what  ideals  are.  Thus  far  we  have  merely  given 
examples  of  them,  called  them  the  products  of  the 
imagination,  and  likened  them  to  food,  the  food  of 
the  spirit.  They  are  more  than  that.  They  are  an 
intensely  vital  element  in  the  life  of  the  human  race, 
the  mainstay  in  our  struggle  for  survival  and  pre- 

39 


40 The  Control  of  Ideals      

dominance;  for  no  class  of  living  beings  could  long 
survive  unless  it  received  aid  from  within,  in  the  shape 
of  some  vital  force  enabling  it  to  develop  the  where- 
withal to  meet  life's  countless  new  emergencies.  All 
animals  have  such  a  force  or  means  of  adaptation  in 
some  degree  or  other,  in  what  biologists  call  fluctuat- 
ing variations;  and  what  these  are  in  the  racial  strug- 
gle of  animals,  our  ideals  are  to  us.  Ideals  are  analo- 
gous to  biological  variations. 

Of  course  we  are  more  complex  beings  than  animals 
lower  in  the  scale,  and  therefore  factors  function 
among  us  in  a  more  complex  way.  For  instance  one 
characteristic  that  we  have  developed,  and  which  so 
far  as  we  are  aware  no  animal  has  been  able  to 
achieve,  is  a  peculiar  duality  which  enables  the  prin- 
ciple of  variation  to  function  in  two  different  compart- 
ments of  one  and  the  same  individual.  Loosely 
speaking  one  is  the  sphere  of  the  physical  and  the 
other  the  sphere  of  the  mental,  and  variations  occur 
in  both.  In  the  theatre  that,  as  Carlyle  says,  stands 
under  every  man's  hat,  there  are  always  two  con- 
tinuous performances;  the  spectator  can  either  look 
through  the  window  of  his  senses  into  the  world  of  the 
senses,  or  he  can  look  through  the  window  of  the 
imagination  into  the  world  of  the  imagination;  and 
that  both  of  these  worlds  are  separate  can  be  seen 
from  the  different  way  in  which  the  principle  of 
variations  functions  in  each  sphere.  In  the  imagina- 
tion this  universal  movement  toward  variations  has 


The  Survival  of  Ideals  41 

found  a  sensitive  medium  where  the  principle  can 
work  freely  and  without  overmuch  permanence,  for 
existence  here  is  spectral  and  volatile  forms  reach 
maturity  with  amazing  speed  so  that  sudden  mutations 
as  well  as  the  regular  fluctuating  variations  can  flour- 
ish in  abundance  and  live  their  little  hour  of  glory 
peacefully  side  by  side.  Then  from  the  ideals  born 
in  our  imagination  the  ones  best  suited  to  survive  are 
transported  into  the  world  of  the  body  where  the 
tempo  of  growth  is  much  slower  and  conditions  of 
survival  harder,  so  that  but  few  of  our  ideals  eventu- 
ally find  their  way  into  our  character  and  habits. 

This  double  functioning  of  the  impulse  toward 
variation  sets  us  apart  from  all  lower  animals.  It  is 
as  if,  at  the  dawn  of  consciousness,  a  part  of  the 
island  of  man  slipped  loose  from  its  moorings  and 
drifted  out  into  the  heart  of  a  warm  ocean  current  that 
brought  it  heat  and  rain  and  a  fertility  beyond  belief, 
so  that  the  wildest  varieties  of  plants  could  grow  in 
great  profusion;  and  what  was  even  more  fortunate, 
the  part  that  slipped  its  moorings  did  not  utterly  sever 
connections  with  the  rocky  mainland,  so  that  occasion- 
ally favourable  winds  still  waft  over  seeds  from  the 
new  hothouse  to  the  old  island  where  those  that  can 
weather  the  climate  and  the  sterner  conditions  take 
root  and  live  on  in  a  more  sheltered  area,  free  from  the 
excessive  competition  that  rages  in  the  tropical  part  of 
us  that  floated  out  to  sea.  In  other  words,  the  imagi- 
nation is  our  experimental  laboratory  with  artificial 


42  The  Control  of  Ideals 

living  conditions  promoting  the  growth  of  all  manner 
of  sports  from  which  only  the  safe  and  sane  and 
beautiful  ones  need  be  selected  for  perpetuation  in  the 
more  corporeal  part  of  our  being.  Instead  of  having 
our  entire  nature,  including  our  physical  life,  sub- 
jected to  countless  sudden  variations  that  would  render 
us  unstable  and  of  precarious  existence,  these  varia- 
tions now  have  free  play  in  a  comparatively  harmless 
medium  from  w^hich  the  hardier  and  more  desirable 
forms  may  be  grafted  over  into  our  daily  life.  Ideals 
are  anticipatory  variations. 

This  is  the  secret  of  our  success  as  earth-dwellers : 
that  consciousness  has  given  us  the  priceless  gift  of 
seeing  deeply  into  the  world  of  the  imagination  which 
is  really  none  other  than  the  workshop  of  nature 
wherein  are  displayed  a  few  of  the  secrets  of  ex- 
istence. This  vision  is  of  inestimable  practical  value, 
for  it  keeps  us  from  being  totally  blind  with  regard 
to  future  possibilities.  We  have  become  to  some  ex- 
tent the  architects  of  our  own  future.  Just  as  out 
of  nature  we  pick  garments  of  certain  cut  and  certain 
colours  with  which  to  clothe  the  body,  so  out  of  the  pos- 
sible selves  and  parts  of  selves  that  range  before  us 
in  the  imagination,  we  pick  and  choose  the  ones 
that  we  like  best.  And  that  is  enough  to  start  tite 
whole  machinery  of  human  ideals. 

Ideals  are  meant  to  be  variations  of  the  human  in- 
dividual, and  that  means  that  at  bottom  they  are  pic- 
tures of  ourselves,  all  at  least  in  some  way  related 


The  Survival  of  Ideals  43 

to  ourselves.  It  means  that  our  ideal  world  is  thor- 
oughly human.  Aeons  ago  in  primitive  man  un- 
formed and  unbalanced  imagination  may  have  con- 
jured up  semi-insane  forms  scarcely  relatable  to  hu- 
man life  and  unimaginable  to  normal  minds;  but  our 
imaginations  have  long  since  been  trained  so  that  the 
prevailing  type  of  ideals  now  clearly  indicates  that 
they  are  meant  for  this  world.  Through  and  through, 
in  origin,  nature,  and  function  our  ideals  smack  of 
this  planet. 

This  human  quality  of  ideals  cannot  be  overem- 
phasized. Ideals  are  idealized  human  beings. 
Whole  systems  of  religion  and  ethics  such  as  Chris- 
tianity, Buddhism,  Stoicism  with  its  idealization  of 
Socrates  as  the  wise  man,  centre  around  some  pivotal 
figure  which  approaches  the  gods  in  power,  wisdom, 
and  insight.  Cosmogonies,  mythologies,  and  theolo- 
gies are  full  of  deities  created  in  our  own  image,  and 
their  general  trend  has  always  been  toward  humani- 
zation.  Our  less  lofty  ideals  are  also  human  to  the 
core.  If  a  man  has  before  him  the  ideal  of  building 
a  bridge,  he  builds  it  for  human  beings  to  walk  upon. 
His  ideal  is  a  picture  of  a  man  safely  and  esthetically 
crossing  a  stream.  If  a  man  makes  a  statue  or  a 
picture,  he  makes  it  for  others  to  enjoy;  for  if  we  were 
all  struck  blind,  painting  as  an  art  would  disappear 
off  the  face  of  the  earth.  It  is  not  pigments  but  the 
soul  of  the  beholder  that  a  painter  manipulates.  All 
the  arts  are  rooted  in  the  heart  of  man.     In  the  ideals 


44  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  science  and  practical  life  the  human  element  is 
even  more  obvious,  for  their  direct  aim  is  to  benefit 
our  fellowmen.  Man  more  comfortable,  more 
healthy,  more  fleet,  more  sharp-sighted,  more  power- 
ful— these  are  the  ideals  expressed  in  Pullman  trains, 
bacteriology,  aviation,  and  telescopes.  Always  when 
a  number  of  apparently  unrelated  phenomena  are 
jumbled  together  as  ideals,  the  common  core  of  them 
is  the  human  element  that  alone  can  give  them  mean- 
ing. They  are  all  built  around  the  same  five  foot 
column  of  sublimated  protoplasm.  Pictures  of  men 
in  new  guise  and  with  new  attributes  doing  new  things 
are  the  substance  of  human  ideals. 

There  is  only  one  way  that  ideals  can  emerge  from 
the  brain  of  the  original  conceiver,  and  that  is  through 
a  transmission  medium.  The  individual  is  the  unit 
of  ethics  but  individuals  are  not  isolated.  They  are 
like  trees  planted  in  a  common  soil  and  around  them 
fly  the  bees  and  blow  the  winds  of  human  intercourse, 
so  that  ideals  cross-fertilize  and  blossom  sometimes  in 
regions  far  remote  from  those  in  which  they  first 
emerged.  Art,  action,  and  speech  are  so  many  links 
through  which  we  communicate  with  each  other  and 
influence  each  other,  and  the  most  important  and 
spontaneous  of  these  is  speech.  Through  speech  each 
man  plays  the  part  of  an  environment  to  the  ideals  of 
his  neighbour.  Through  speech  our  minds  are 
opened  to  ideas,  while  at  the  same  time  our  own  ideas 
fly  to  meet  those  that  come  from  other  sources.     The 


The  Survival  of  Ideals  45 

significance  of  the  minds  of  our  fellowmen  immedi- 
ately becomes  apparent;  they  are  our  environment. 

If  it  were  not  for  other  people  our  ideals  would 
grow  without  environment,  which  is  equivalent  to  say- 
ing that  they  would  not  grow  at  all.  A  man  of  our 
dual  construction  but  alone  and  without  companions 
would  be  a  raving  maniac,  not  knowing  his  dreams 
from  his  waking  hours.  He  would  be  a  man  whose 
thoughts  had  no  environment,  and  his  only  safety, 
like  that  of  the  animals,  would  be  in  having  no  ideals 
at  all.  We  need  human  comrades  both  as  a  stimulus 
and  a  check.  Love  is  the  stimulus,  censure  the  check, 
and  the  latter  is  as  important  as  the  former,  for  our 
ideals  after  all  are  much  like  decorations  which  can 
be  easily  overdone.  They  are  our  boast  to  our  breth- 
ren who  in  turn  have  a  wholesome  way  of  demanding 
that  we  make  good  our  boast.  They  ask  of  us  that 
our  dreams  come  true,  or  in  other  words  that  we  check 
the  dreams  coming  through  the  shining  ivory  door  and 
cultivate  only  those  that  issue  from  the  gate  of  horn ; 
for  it  must  be  remembered  that  imagination  is  the 
mother  of  language  and  that  just  as  our  mouth  can 
utter  lies,  so  the  imagination  can  give  us  false  ideals 
which  like  all  lies  will  not  travel  a  great  distance  in 
society. 

False  ideals  are  weeded  out  by  interchange  of 
thought.  If  they  get  by  this  thought  barrier  and  suc- 
ceed in  becoming  parts  of  our  institutions  and  habits 
of  living,  the  laws  that  rule  our  mortal  bodies  take 


46  The  Control  of  Ideals 

a  hand  in  punishing  us  for  false  ideals;  but  the  first 
and  less  Draconian  tribunal  is  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  our  fellowmen. 

Here  there  arises  a  danger,  and  that  is  that  our 
ideals  may  be  transplanted  too  soon  from  the  world  of 
the  imagination  into  the  world  of  the  physical.  The 
tendency  of  all  ideals  is  to  be  governed  by  the  law  of 
parsimony,  or  of  quick  results.  They  tend  to  avoid 
rubbing  up  against  other  ideals,  especially  those  com- 
ing from  other  minds,  and  to  get  control  of  the  physi- 
cal machinery  of  life  as  soon  as  possible.  An  unripe 
or  perverse  idea  that  ought  to  have  matured  or  re- 
ceived its  correct  shape  in  the  realm  of  competition 
with  other  minds,  finds  lax  resistance  here  and  spring- 
ing into  general  adoption  grows  to  monstrous  size  and 
power  in  a  world  where  possibilities  for  harm  are 
staggering.  A  single  disproportionate  ideal  can 
wreck  the  physical  machinery  of  man  and  endanger 
the  existence  of  all  ideals  and  of  human  life  itself. 
That  is  how  mob  insanity  is  bom.  It  is  well-known 
that  the  man  of  one  book  or  of  one  idea  is  a  formid- 
able opponent,  but  a  far  more  maniacal  thing  is  a 
group  of  men,  or  a  whole  nation,  under  the  spell  of  a 
perverse  ideal.  Taken  up  into  the  physical  texture 
of  the  body  politic  too  soon,  a  false  ideal  will  act 
like  poison  or  a  parasite  that  gnaws  the  vitals  of  its 
host  and  ends  by  bringing  about  the  destruction  both 
of  itself  and  of  the  organism  on  which  it  feeds. 
When  ideals,  by  not  being  properly  humanized,  be- 


The  Survival  of  Ideals  47 

come  self-centred  and  cease  to  be  the  servants  of 
man,  they  get  to  be  the  most  dangerous  things  on 
earth. 

The  proper  battlefield  for  ideals  is  speech  and 
books  and  the  imagination.  In  this  medium  a  wealth 
of  ideals  can  be  fostered  and  encouraged  until  the 
right  and  useful  ones  appear.  If  out  of  impatience 
we  adopt  ideals  too  soon,  what  happens  is  that  ideals 
fight  the  matter  out,  not  on  the  plane  of  the  ideal 
where  alone  justice  and  morality  is  found,  but  on  the 
plane  of  the  physical.  In  a  world  stricken  with  pov- 
erty of  imagination  there  are  but  few  ideals,  and  each 
has  a  firm  control  of  a  part  of  the  physical  life  of  the 
human  race.  The  fight  then  goes  on  by  pitting  the 
physical  strength  controlled  by  one  idea  against  the 
physical  strength  controlled  by  other  ideas;  and  the 
result  is  a  physical  struggle  in  which  the  battle  in- 
variably goes  to  the  strong  battalions.  Might  be- 
comes right.  The  combat  falls  from  the  moral  plane 
of  human  intercourse  to  the  unmoral  plane  of  nature 
where  it  is  true  that  might  alone  is  right. 

The  moral  is  that  we  should  keep  our  ideals  well 
within  their  own  environment  until  we  are  sure  that 
in  real  life  they  will  not  do  more  harm  than  good.  We 
should  develop  fore-  instead  of  hindsight.  It  is 
cheaper  to  learn  by  prescience  and  experiment  than 
by  experience.  In  other  words,  the  imagination 
should  be  developed  to  unheard  of  lengths.  More 
and  more  as  the  race  keeps  growing,  ideals  are  tested 


48  The  Control  of  Ideals 

not  by  expensive  experience  but  by  free  discussion 
and  experiment.  Education  encourages  the  growth 
and  improves  the  stock  of  our  ideals,  and  the  import- 
ance which  is  everywhere  beginning  to  be  attached  to 
educating  the  multitude  argues  for  a  movement 
toward  appreciation  of  the  fact  that  by  an  abundance 
of  clear  ideas  most  of  our  difficulties  can  be  overcome. 
For  that  is  another  fascinating  feature  of  keeping 
ideals  well  and  long  within  the  realm  of  the  imagina- 
tion; it  makes  them  more  prolific,  for  the  reason  that 
here  ideals  are  in  their  native  soil  and  still  in  a  posi- 
tion where  they  can  easily  be  reached  and  reinforced 
by  ideals  from  the  minds  of  others.  The  environ- 
ment here  is  infinitely  more  elastic  than  in  the  realm 
of  the  physical.  Suppose  we  could  arrange  the  clim- 
ate of  the  earth,  the  composition  of  the  air,  and  the 
rate  of  falling  bodies  to  suit  our  own  convenience, 
then  we  should  have  an  imperfect  analogy  of  what  is 
actually  possible  in  the  sphere  of  thoughts  and  images. 
Nowhere  else  in  nature  is  the  environment  so  com- 
pletely under  control.  Ideals  have  a  way  of  chang- 
ing the  resistance  of  other  ideals  into  a  co-operation 
that  infuses  new  life  and  vigour  into  the  original  ideal. 
The  art  of  co-operation  in  the  production  of  ideas  is 
still  in  its  infancy.  The  Greeks  caught  a  glimmer  of 
the  possibilities  in  this  direction  when  in  their  original 
and  well-planned  democracy  they  ascribed  an  over- 
weening importance  to  eloquence.  Every  man  had  to 
be  an  orator  so  that  in  the  realm  of  free  minds  he 


The  Survival  of  Ideals  49 

might  defend  and  improve  his  own  ideas.  There  are 
no  hard  and  fast  limits  to  the  production  of  ideas,  and 
we  can  never  get  enough  of  them;  for  we  can  never 
tell  when  there  will  swim  into  our  ken  the  new  idea 
or  ideal  that  will  be  the  solution  of  age-old  and  stub- 
bom  difficulties.  If  we  want  to  find  a  solution  that 
will  overcome  the  world  without  overcoming  us  at 
the  same  time,  we  shall  need  all  the  aid  that  a  multi- 
tude of  original  ideas  can  give  us.  Soul-stuff  is 
precious  and  as  yet  not  very  durable.  Stars  measure 
time  by  aeons,  but  a  creature  whose  span  of  life  is 
seventy  years  should  make  full  use  of  the  imagination 
in  whidh  the  production  of  ideas  is  loosened  up, 
speeded  up,  and  rendered  more  elastic.  The  imagi- 
nation is  our  shortcut  to  happiness.  \ 


CHAPTER  V 

NATIONS 

The  past  history  of  the  race  discloses  everywhere  a 
conservative  policy  of  making  our  ideals  few  in  num- 
ber but  great  in  importance.  We  have  had  to  be 
satisfied  with  making  the  most  of  the  comparatively 
small  number  of  really  great  ideals  that  have  proved 
to  be  assimilable.  PeAaps  the  fact  that  there  were 
so  few  has  helped  to  make  them  more  important.  Al- 
though this  paucity  of  ideals  is  the  root  of  all  intol- 
erance, it  has  at  the  same  time  contributed  immensely 
toward  their  intensification  and  growth.  The  tend- 
ency to  venerate  one  ideal  at  the  expense  of  all  oth- 
ers has  aided  in  establishing  that  exaggeratedly  wor- 
shipful attitude  that  obtains  full  play  when  one  ideal 
becomes  supreme  above  all  others;  it  has  changed 
polytheism  into  monotheism,  incipient  nationalism 
into  the  Roman  Empire,  and  the  early  Christian  gath- 
erings into  the  all-powerful  Church  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  As  long  as  our  ideals  were  viewed  as  ex- 
ternal things  to  lean  upon  and  to  adore,  there  has  been 
this  tendency  toward  reducing  their  number.  One 
prop  is  enough  to  learn  to  walk  by,  and  it  has  taken 
us  a  long  time  to  learn  to  use  our  own  legs  and  throw 

our  wooden  props  away  altogether,  or  better  still  use 

60 


Nations  51 


them  for  something  else  such  as  material  with  which 
to  build  our  house. 

The  prop  upon  which  we  lean  in  achieving  our 
spiritual  independence  generally  takes  the  form  of 
our  chief  ideal.  Out  of  our  small  stock  of  precious 
ideals  we  pick  one  and  make  that  our  summum 
bonum.  There  is  no  doubt  that  in  the  past  this  pro- 
cedure was  absolutely  defensible,  for  the  human  race 
cannot  hope  to  escape  the  laws  of  evolution  whereby 
it  frequently  happens  that  a  bold  new  form  is  sud- 
denly achieved  and  all  else  risked  to  save  it.  A  new 
and  powerful  trait  even  in  our  mental  life  has  a  way 
of  bringing  all  others  into  submission.  When  ideals 
first  became  important  to  the  human  race  not  every 
little  ideal  was  as  important  as  every  other.  It  was 
a  great  achievement  if  they  were  kept  from  dying  out 
altogether  by  picking  out  one,  the  very  biggest,  and 
concentrating  on  that.  Thus  each  cycle  of  culture  has 
had  its  supreme  ideal  by  which  men  have  been  hyp- 
notized and  to  which  they  have  clung  with  all  the 
fanaticism  of  grim  life  struggling  to  get  ahead;  and 
it  was  better  that  we  should  go  through  a  period  in 
which  the  individual  was  easily  sacrificed  to  the  ideal 
than  that  there  should  be  no  ideals  at  all.  Nature, 
red  in  tooth  and  claw  but  always  displaying  enough 
wisdom  to  be  careful  of  the  race  first  and  the  in- 
dividual afterward,  has  followed  a  similar  policy 
with  respect  to  ideals  when  through  some  subtle,  intra- 
mundial  psychology  men  were  led  to  render  ideals 


52  The  Control  of  Ideals 

inviolate  by  placing  them  among  the  things  that,  like 
the  race,  had  to  be  saved  at  the  expense  of  many  an 
individual.  The  program  has  been  race  first,  ideals 
second,  and  individuals  third;  in  the  hope  perhaps 
that  some  day  the  individual  would  grow  sufficiently 
mature  to  take  care  of  himself  and  enter  upon  the 
double  inheritance  which  has  been  prepared  for  him 
throughout  all  ages,  the  world  of  nature  and  the  world 
of  his  ideals. 

Looked  at  from  a  human  point  of  view  the  history 
of  our  planet  falls  into  four  anthropological  ages  of 
which  the  first,  embracing  the  preparation  of  the 
planet  earth  for  the  abode  of  man,  corresponds  to  the 
geologic  periods  during  which  the  earth  took  shape 
and  became  physically  fit  for  human  occupation. 
After  being  placed  on  earth  we  had  to  conquer  it  and 
endeavour  to  grow  worthy  of  our  conquest  in  the 
process,  so  that  the  second  age  is  the  period  during 
which  man  obtained  physical  dominion  over  the  earth. 
The  third  age  comprises  the  preparation  of  a  new 
world  of  human  ideals  and  ideas,  and  the  fourth  age 
is  the  conquest  of  this  new  world. 

It  is  the  third  age  that  begins  at  the  dawn  of  history 
when  ideals  were  still  scarce  and  grossly  materialistic. 
In  the  initial  period  the  crudest  objects  could  become 
totems  or  idols,  and  in  doing  so  they  obtained  a  new 
quality,  that  of  being  a  symbol;  and  the  significance 
of  this  is  that  a  symbol  always  points  to  something 
other  than  itself,  something  unseen,  and  that  an  idola- 


Nations  53 


trous  race  is  therefore  a  race  that  is  training  its  eyes 
to  see  the  invisible.  This  training  was  kept  up.  The 
world  over,  men  became  worshippers  of  objects  that 
somehow  crudely  stood  for  ideals.  The  process  of 
further  development  is  exhibited  in  records  such  as 
that  of  the  Old  Testament  where  it  becomes  plain  how 
the  growth  of  the  inner  life,  and  the  tendency  toward 
concentration  on  a  single  ideal,  which  has  already 
been  mentioned,  led  a  truly  religious  people  to  in- 
tensify its  idols  until  monotheism  was  born.  And 
not  only  that.  During  development  the  material  sym- 
bol retreats  into  the  background,  spiritualization  ac- 
companies unification,  and  by  the  time  monotheism  is 
full-fledged  idols  of  stone  have  changed  into  the  one 
truly  invisible  God  of  the  prophets. 

The  same  growth  with  a  certain  softening  down  of 
harsh  outlines  continues  after  the  period  of  Judaism, 
when  large  sections  of  humanity  all  over  the  world 
entered  the  monotheistic  stage.  The  ensuing  cen- 
turies of  religious  preoccupation  served  as  an  im- 
mense tonic  to  the  imagination,  which  was  in  this 
manner  strengthened  in  the  struggle  for  life  until 
nothing  could  again  destroy  or  overthrow  it. 
Through  discipline  and  exercise  such  as  that  afforded 
by  the  establishment  of  great  religions  humanity  was 
enabled  to  reach  a  stage  where  the  world  of  the  un- 
seen became  more  real  than  the  world  of  the  senses. 
These  activities  concentrated  and  solidified  the 
nebulae  of  the  new  world  of  our  imagination.     Plato 


54  The  Control  of  Ideals 

had  toyed  with  the  notion  that  there  was  a  splendid 
world  of  ideals  more  glorious  than  the  one  beheld 
with  human  eyes  in  a  body  which  was  but  the 
prison  house  for  an  immortal  soul  that  "had  else- 
where its  setting  and  cometh  from  afar,"  but  before 
this  vein  of  thought  was  quite  worked  out  this  other 
world  of  our  ideals  not  only  became  more  real  to  us 
than  the  everyday  world  of  the  senses,  but  we  also 
loved  it  more  and  felt  more  at  home  in  contemplating 
it  than  in  contemplating  facts  of  nature.  After  Plato 
a  period  of  other-worldliness  ensued  during  which 
the  habit  of  living  by  ideals  had  an  opportunity  to 
strike  its  roots  into  the  marrow  of  our  bones.  The 
time  finally  came  when  reaction  was  both  inevitable 
and  safe ;  we  could  be  weaned  from  over-indulgence  in 
an  ideal  world  without  at  the  same  time  losing  our 
ideals  and  our  capacity  for  spiritual  growth. 

There  followed  in  the  modem  era  new  centuries 
bringing  home  to  us  the  fact  that  the  invisible  is 
rooted  in  the  dust.  The  beginning  was  the  Renais- 
sance, which  however  in  no  way  resembled  an  awaken- 
ing to  sad  reality.  It  was  more  like  a  return  to 
consciousness  after  a  strengthening  sleep  in  which  our 
powers  of  observation  have  increased.  It  was  a  new 
awakening  to  the  joys  of  earth  in  which  rekindled 
interest  in  terrestrial  matters  led  to  the  discovery  of 
new  continents,  of  new  revelations  in  astronomy,  and 
of  new  treasures  in  an  ancient  world  of  letters  which 
had  long  been  submerged  in  oblivion,  but  which  was 


Nations  55 


no  less  new  because  it  had  merely  been  forgotten. 
There  ensued  the  linking  together  of  ages,  the  unifi- 
cation of  men  as  planet-dwellers,  and  the  loss  of  fear 
for  the  physically  unknown.  In  unity  there  is 
strength  and  boldness.  Abhorrence  of  the  physical 
world  gave  place  to  admiration,  and  in  proportion  as 
the  grandeur  of  this  world  increased  the  other  world 
released  men  from  its  fetters. 

The  new  and  diversified  ideals  bom  in  the  Re- 
naissance effectually  placed  in  the  background  the  su- 
preme ideal  that  had  dominated  the  preceding  cen- 
turies, although  in  the  Reformation  there  did  occur  a 
feeble  effort  to  revive  our  interest  in  other-worldli- 
ness.  As  an  original  movement  of  tremendous  prom- 
ise the  Reformation  has  been  overestimated.  The  dis- 
integration of  the  Church  was  but  its  manner  of  ceding 
the  centre  of  the  stage  to  other  interests.  A  short 
time  after  the  Reformation,  the  bulk  of  European 
humanity  ceased  to  be  first  and  foremost  members  of 
a  Church  and  became  instead  members  of  a  political 
State.  Even  then  for  a  While  they  clung  to  ecclesias- 
tical habits  and  ways  of  thinking.  Kings  replaced 
spiritual  potentates,  but  they  still  ruled  by  "divine" 
right.  This  element  of  other-worldliness  was 
sloughed  off  when  kings  also  had  to  become  secular 
or  lose  their  heads.  Then  began  the  movement  which 
ended  in  the  birth  of  democracies,  or  popular  govern- 
ment, in  which  the  solid  people  as  represented  by  a 
physical  majority  were  enthroned.     We  enter  the  era 


56  The  .  Control  of  Ideals 

of  democracy  in  the  literal  sense  of  that  word,  and 
the  only  remnants  of  other-worldliness  still  left  to  us 
now  are  the  nations. 

The  gods  of  this  age  are  the  nations.  Nations  are 
not  peoples;  they  are  ideas.  They  are  psychological 
entities.  This  has  been  best  brought  out  by  Israel 
Zangwill  in  his  little  book  on  the  "Principle  of  Na- 
tions," w'here  after  illustrations  and  arguments  he 
comes  to  the  following  conclusion: 

"Thus,  then,  it  appears,  neither  identity  of  race  nor 
of  language,  nor  of  religion,  nor  of  territory,  nor  of 
interests,  nor  of  culture,  nor  of  soul,  is  indispensable  to 
a  nationality.  ...  It  is  a  psychological  phenomenon, 
having  its  regular  laws  of  origin,  development,  and 
decay.  .  .  .  Nationality,  we  now  see,  is  a  state  of  mind 
corresponding  to  a  political  fact.  .  .  .  Nationality  .  .  . 
can  be  explained  only  by  psychology.  It  is — or  should 
be — a  section  of  'the  psychology  of  crowds.'  It  springs 
from  the  operation  of  what  I  propose  to  call  'the  law 
of  contiguous  co-operation.'  This  is  the  law  under 
which  casual  atoms  are  unified  by  mutual  magnetism 
into  a  congregation,  a  corps,  a  team,  a  party,  each  with 
its  peculiar  group-spirit.  Co-operation  even  at  a  dis- 
tance brings  fellow-feeling:  contiguity  even  without 
co-operation  draws  together." 

To  this  should  be  added  that  nations  are  not  merely 
psychological  entities  but  also  mighty  ideals,  such  as 
the  Church  has  been,  such  as  were  the  idols  of  our 
forefathers,  only  less  august  and  much  more  human. 
The  core  of  each  nation  is  the  type  of  citizen  it  repre- 


Nations  57 


sents.  When  we  say  that  nations  are  ideals  we  do  not 
mean  that  they  are  non-existent  realms  found  only  in 
the  imagination,  but  we  mean  that  each  nation  stands 
for  an  ideal  type  of  citizen  who  exemplifies  the  vir- 
tues that  all  other  citizens  are  striving  to  attain. 
Slightly  caricatured  this  comes  out  in  the  fact  that 
next  to  our  flags  we  have  our  figures  of  John  Bull 
or  Uncle  Sam  which,  in  spite  of  being  humorous  ex- 
aggerations, lead  no  one  but  a  fool  into  thinking  that 
nations  are  ridiculous.  Nations  by  becoming  more 
human  and  quite  the  reverse  of  other-worldly  have 
in  common  with  all  mortal  things  attained  a  slightly 
humorous  side;  but  they  have  also  not  lost  their 
other  side  which  is  deep  and  tragic  and  sublime,  for 
the  real  symbol  of  a  nation  is  the  flag  and  around 
the  flag  stands  a  religion  which  is  patriotism,  and  a 
Bible  which  is  history,  and  martyrs  who  are  the 
national  heroes. 

The  nations  are  the  first  gods  come  to  dwell  un- 
reservedly among  men,  and  we  love  them  more  than 
we  do  ourselves,  for  this  love  is  rooted  in  an  age- 
old  habit  of  worshipping  the  unseen  through  a  symbol. 
Unfortunately  it  is  the  gods  and  not  a  god  that  has 
come  down  to  us.  A  disquieting  circumstance  is  that 
nationalism  is  not  a  monotheism  but  worship  of  many 
gods;  and  this  leads  us  to  think  that  the  stage  at 
which  men  worship  nations  may  also  be  a  transition 
stage,  a  dear  one  because  it  is  our  own,  but  never- 
theless a  transition  stage  bound  to  undergo  changes. 


58  The  Control  of  Ideals 

The  gods  have  already  clashed.  We  have  had  our 
battle  of  the  nations  and  we  may  yet  have  our  twilight 
of  the  nations,  but  meanwhile  these  nations  are  unit- 
ing into  a  family  much  after  the  pleasant  analogy  of 
a  former  family  of  gods  on  Mount  Olympus.  Peace, 
between  nations  at  least,  may  not  yet  be  an  accom- 
plished fact  but  it  is  coming.  Even  after  the  Olym- 
pian League  of  Nations,  or  something  similar  to  it, 
has  been  established  it  may  occasionally  be  necessary 
to  depose  a  Vulcan  and  let  him  drop  for  nine  days 
into  his  proper  place,  but  let  us  hope  that  these  will 
be  family  readjustments  and  not  family  feuds.  We 
are  going  about  things  in  the  right  way  when,  instead 
of  making  our  gods  more  terrible  and  warlike,  we 
make  them  more  humane  and  beautiful.  In  the  post- 
bellum  period  we  shall  take  away  from  our  gods  their 
sacrifices  and  their  thunderbolts,  we  shall  rob  them 
of  their  ability  to  do  us  harm,  but  we  shall  not  nec- 
essarily do  away  with  them  altogether.  As  the  chang- 
ing ideals  of  groups  of  men,  it  will  not  hurt  each 
nation  to  be  more  itself  than  ever  before,  for  groups, 
like  single  persons,  may  go  far  in  developing  an 
individuality  of  their  own;  and  the  living  together 
in  some  sort  of  international  unity  need  no  more 
destroy  the  essentially  human  individuality  of  a  na- 
tion than  the  circumstance  of  being  united  under  a 
single  government  destroys  individuals.  Groupings 
like  our  own  New  England  poets  or  the  Chicago  school 
of  philosophy  or  the  Republican  party  occur  with 


Nations  59 


perfect  regularity  under  the  same  government;  simi- 
larly under  universal  peace  the  culture  of  France, 
Italy,  America,  and  of  all  other  countries  may  flourish 
all  the  better  because  the  pedestal  of  nations  has  been 
lowered  and  their  stability  increased. 

The  spirit  of  co-operation  is  beginning  to  prevail 
also  among  nations.  Political  dependence  no  longer 
necessarily  means  the  utter  slavery  that  it  did  in 
bygone  ages.  More  and  more  certain  kinds  of  de- 
pendence are  becoming  an  aid  rather  than  a  hindrance 
to  self -development.  The  time  for  putting  a  narrow 
construction  on  the  principle  of  "Give  me  Liberty  or 
Give  me  Death"  is  past.  If  this  principle  had  always 
been  strictly  applied  even  in  the  past,  then  it  were 
better  that  all  the  inhabitants  of  partitioned  Poland 
had  committed  suicide,  that  all  the  conquered  South 
African  Boers  had  burned  themselves  on  a  great  fun- 
eral pyre,  and  that  the  vanquished  Greeks  instead  of 
becoming  the  slaves  and  eventual  teachers  of  the  Ro- 
mans should  centuries  ago  have  thrown  themselves 
into  the  sea. 

This  does  not  mean  that  there  may  not  have  been 
times  when  it  was  better  to  fight  than  to  be  conquered. 
Just  as  there  are  murderers  among  individuals  so 
there  have  been  murderers  among  the  nations  whose 
aim  was  extinction  and  soul-exterminating  slavery  and 
who  could  be  checked  only  by  fighting  back;  for  a 
murderous  and  maniacal  nation  that  stops  at  nothing 
thereby  places  itself  in  a  class  with  deadly  microbes, 


60  The  Control  of  Ideals 

storms,  famine,  and  the  unmoral  elements  in  nature 
against  whom  war  is  never  over.  If  a  portion  of 
mankind  descends  to  the  level  of  the  potato  bug  it 
can  only  expect  to  be  stepped  upon,  for  the  principle 
that  human  life  is  sacred  is  a  very  simple  one.  It 
means  that  all  the  agencies  that  threaten  human  life 
must  be  rendered  harmless,  and  if  one  of  these  agen- 
cies itself  be  human  and  the  absolutely  only  way  of 
rendering  it  harmless  is  to  kill  it,  then  there  is.no 
element  of  choice  left  in  the  matter.  Normally  the 
principle  that  human  life  is  sacred  acts  as  a  restrain- 
ing influence  preventing  murder,  not  by  killing  the 
would-be  murderer,  but  by  changing  the  heart  and 
inclination  of  the  murderer  and  doing  away  with 
savage  thoughts  by  substituting  others  and  more  sober 
ones;  therefore,  the  nation  that  in  the  post-bellum 
period  still  wants  war,  places  itself  outside  the  pale 
of  humanity  and  the  only  thing  left  is  to  quarantine 
that  nation,  to  curb  it  as  disease  is  curbed,  until  a  cure 
sets  in.  If  argument  and  education  fail,  there  re- 
main economic  pressure  and  starvation,  until  every 
nation  learns  that  indeed  we  must  all  hang  together 
or  we  shall  all  hang  separately.  That  will  be  the 
great  achievement  of  modern  times,  that  we  have 
chained  our  gods,  so  that  even  nations  can  no  longer 
at  will  break  out  and  commit  random  destruction. 
In  the  age  of  post-bellum  economics  it  is  possible  to 
perfect  machinery  that  will  as  effectually  isolate  a 
nation  as  prison  bars  shut  in  a  malefactor;  and  if  this 


Nations  61 


can  be  done  the  last  excuse  for  war  will  have  dis- 
appeared. Mankind  will  have  entered  upon  the  post- 
bellum  stage,  the  guarantee  of  whose  continuance  will 
be  the  cultivation  of  the  attitude  of  mind  that  we  have 
all  along  been  trying  to  describe. 

The  embodiment  of  man's  supreme  ideal  has 
changed  from  totems  to  idols,  from  idols  to  invisible 
realms,  from  realms  to  the  Church,  the  Church  to 
kings,  kings  to  nations,  and  now  the  end  of  nations  as 
sovereign  powers  is  near.  It  will  come,  it  must  come, 
the  time  when  the  battle  of  nations  will  have  to  our 
ear  the  far-off  sound  of  Greek  mythology;  and  to 
hasten  this  day  the  one  thing  to  do  will  be  to  look 
forward  not  backward,  to  fix  an  eye  not  on  the  glories 
of  the  past,  but  on  the  unbelievable  grandeur  of  the 
future.  What  all  our  gods  have  been  to  us  we  can 
now  be  to  ourselves.  The  whole  world  of  the 
imagination  can  be  made  real.  As  an  artist  hews 
his  dream  in  stone  so  we  shall  henceforth  hew  our 
gods  from  human  hearts,  for  there  lies  our  future — 
in  the  world  of  human  nature,  in  the  unplumbed 
depths  of  hearts  and  heads,  in  the  new  and  complex 
emotions  caused  by  the  unbelievable  visions  and  in- 
sights and  the  great  courages  to  come  when  the  indi- 
vidual shall  live  not  as  a  tribesman,  Jew  or  Greek  or 
citizen  of  Rome  but  as  living,  throbbing  members  of 
a  humanized  planet.  Now  we  live  on  earth  by  a 
sort  of  tolerance,  but  some  day  the  earth  will  really 
be  under  our  feet.     Some  day  our  wits  will  stop  wool- 


62  The  Control  of  Ideals 

gathering,  our  hearts  will  stop  bowing  down  before 
strange  gods,  and  our  eyes  will  open  to  the  ethics  of 
the  dust.  Then  we  shall  return  to  the  path  at  some 
turn  of  which  earth  will  be  forced  to  give  up  secrets 
that  will  make  us  masters  irrevocable  of  our  whole 
fate.  Without  being  either  a  socialist  or  an  anar- 
chist, one  may  wish  to  hasten  the  day  when  all  men 
will  clearly  see  that  wars  divide  the  house  of  humanity 
against  itself  and  that  the  great  struggle  is  not  the 
fight  between  man  and  man,  but  the  figiht  between 
man  and  the  blind  powers  that  make  him.  This  is 
the  philosophy  of  Earthianism,  that  our  real  problem 
is  right  here  below  and  that  the  only  question  is 
whether  the  earth  will  overcome  us  or  whether  we  will 
overcome  the  earth. 


CHAPTER  VI 
DEVELOPMENT  OF  SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS 

The  only  thing  on  earth  that  has  been  granted  the 
power  of  putting  a  value  on  itself  is  the  human  in- 
dividual. It  is  gradually  beginning  to  dawn  upon 
us  that  we  are  the  only  beings  that  have  been  handed 
a  blank  check  to  be  filled  out  with  an  estimate  of 
our  own  worth  and  then  made  good,  and  that  we  are 
unique  in  rightly  or  wrongly  fancying  ourselves  su- 
perior to  our  surroundings  and  in  developing  the  un- 
heard of  temerity  of  smiling  at  the  very  forces  which 
produced  us.  It  is  becoming  clear  that  we  are  to  be 
the  first  to  receive  the  right  of  self-determination^ 
Earth  is  slow  to  let  power  slip  from  its  grasp,  but  we 
are  equally  slow  in  realizing  that  that  is  exactly  what 
is  happening  when  gradually  but  surely  the  secrets  of 
nature  are  finding  an  outlet  through  human  conscious- 
ness. 

To  be  sure,  outside  of  humanity  there  are  other 
and  fairly  intelligent  creatures  that  do  not  hesitate 
to  act  as  if  they  owned  the  world,  but  they  do  not 
realize  the  significance  of  their  own  attitude.  Sur- 
rounding the  human  race  there  is  a  great  deal  of  fear 
and  hunger  and  procreation,  but  all  much  in  the  same 

63 


64  The  Control  of  Ideals 

way  as  there  is  lightning,  wind,  and  gravitation. 
These  are  all  terrific  powers  burrowing  underground 
without  ever  reaching  the  light  of  consciousness.  The 
whole  of  unconscious  creation  moves  in  a  blind  and 
terrible  bondage,  and  nowhere,  except  in  human  in- 
dividuals, is  there  a  detached  and  animated  being 
that  can  look  before  it  leaps  and  make  any  effort  at 
all  to  avert  its  own  impending  doom. 

Everywhere  in  nature  there  is  subservience  to  law, 
so  that  living  beings  act  not  as  individuals  but  in 
tremendous  groups.  Thus  far  there  has  been  a  crude 
mass  production  of  uniform  building  material  and 
little  else.  In  this  connection  the  apparent  disregard 
found  all  through  nature  for  the  individual  and  the 
exaggerated  care  for  species  becomes  significant. 
The  present  earth  is  doubtless  meant  to  be  a  scaffold- 
ing. The  forces  of  nature  have  thus  far  been  build- 
ing only  in  the  rough.  Beams  have  been  put  up, 
rafters  are  there,  power  sleeps  latent  in  large  lines; 
but  never  until  human  individuals  appeared  was  there 
a  hint  that  the  building  was  to  take  shape,  to  be  fin- 
ished off  with  decorations,  and  perhaps  even  to  be 
put  to  some  use.  There  have  been  endless  repeti- 
tions and  experiments  in  the  kind  of  species  that 
could  best  survive  but  never  a  hint  that  nature  was 
anything  more  than  a  rough  craftsman  unable  to  put 
on  finishing  touches  or  even  to  decide  on  the  style  of 
architecture  desired,  until  the  whole  enigma  is  ap- 
parently   explained    by    the    appearance    of    self- 


Development  of  Self-Consciousness      65 

conscious  beings  who,  when  grown  to  maturity,  seem 
destined  to  become  the  detail  workers,  the  finishers, 
and  perhaps  eventually  the  masters  of  the  earth. 
Blind  forces  of  simple  origin  cannot  themselves  com- 
plete a  job  which,  as  indications  show,  is  now  being 
delegated  to  no  other  agency  than  to  the  individuals 
of  the  human  species. 

But  it  has  taken  us  geological  ages  before  we 
reached  the  stage  where  we  could  even  take  the  hint. 
Not  in  a  day,  not  in  a  year,  not  in  aeons,  do  we  get 
over  the  firmly  implanted  notion  that  we  are  anything 
but  a  part  of  nature,  to  be  used  blindly  by  great  forces, 
and  beaten  about  against  our  will  eventually  to  meet 
a  more  than  probable  and  early  doom  to  which,  like 
the  rest  of  nature,  we  had  better  become  resigned  as 
soon  as  possible.  Only  during  the  last  four  thousand 
years  have  there  been  certain  aberrations  which  indi- 
cate a  ripening  consciousness;  I  call  them  aberrations 
because  we  looked  for  the  development  of  our  king- 
dom elsewhere  than  on  earth.  Only  recently,  largely 
through  the  influence  of  science,  have  our  eyes  begun 
to  open  to  mundane  possibilities;  and  the  passing  of 
wars  will  open  our  eyes  still  further  until  we  begin 
to  wake  up  to  the  fact  that  some  of  the  secrets  of 
nature  are  being  whispered  into  our  ears  and  that  per- 
haps the  far  off  divine  event,  heralded  so  long,  is  none 
other  than  the  day  when  the  reins  of  human  destiny 
will  pass  from  nature's  hands  into  our  own.  At  a 
certain  point  in  the  future,  consciousness  is  bound 


66 The  Control  of  Ideals 

to  come  of  age;  and  then,  inebriate  with  power,  we 
shall  feel  earth's  centre  of  gravity,  hope,  and  respon- 
sibility shift  to  within  our  own  bosoms. 

Viewed  as  a  step  toward  this  event,  the  long  upward 
climb,  representing  the  growth  of  consciousness  from 
primitive  man  to  modem  time,  becomes  significant. 
Our  real  work  as  fullgrown  men  and  women  still  lies 
before  us,  but  the  first  long  step  toward  an  enlightened 
individualism  is  nearly  over.  We  began  with  canni- 
balism. Savages  attadh  so  little  worth  to  themselves 
as  individuals  that  without  compunction  they  hunt  and 
slay  and  eat  each  other.  In  utter  disregard  for  one's 
neighbour  it  is  hard  to  go  farther  back  than  to  the  days 
when  each  tribe  was  food  for  another  tribe.  Form- 
erly like  animals  we  preyed  upon  each  other,  and 
from  that  day  to  the  time  when  human  life  will  be 
the  most  sacred  thing  on  earth  is  one  long  steady 
climb. 

Thus  far  man,  like  nature,  has  been  careless  of 
the  single  life.  After  unmitigated  savagery  ensue 
long  periods  in  which  the  chief  function  of  the  male 
was  to  be  a  warrior.  There  were  tribal  wars  and 
wars  of  conquest  lasting  well  into  the  time  when  men 
were  savages  no  more.  In  the  early  part  of  this 
period  prisoners  of  war  were  put  to  death.  It  was 
only  gradually  that  the  conqueror  learned  to  dispose 
of  his  prisoners  in  a  less  summary  fashion  than  that 
prompted  by  the  prodigal  impulse  of  nature. 

A  variation  of  the  wars  of  conquest  were  the  wars 


Development  of  Self-Consciousness     67 

of  ambition  and  rivalry.  Within  historic  times,  a 
number  of  more  or  less  successful  empires  strut  and 
fret  and  have  their  little  day.  Not  to  go  back  to  the 
Assyrians  and  Babylonians,  there  are  the  hosts  of 
Alexander  the  Great,  of  Caesar,  and  of  Charlemagne. 
The  greatest  of  former  empires  was  Rome,  and  its 
habit  of  using  the  ever-ready  sword  for  purposes  of 
furthering  dominion  was  copied  by  the  devotees  of 
religion,  who  thus  transplanted  war  into  a  new  and 
fertile  field.  The  Church  militant,  ably  seconded  by 
the  Mohammedans,  has  done  wonders  in  keeping  the 
martial  spirit  alive.  It  taught  us  that  war  and  ex- 
termination could  ostensibly  be  made  to  serve  the 
highest  ideals.  From  this  it  is  but  a  step  to  wars 
for  all  sorts  of  ideals  including  political  ones.  In 
the  name  of  religion  and  of  liberty  countless  souls 
have  marched  to  an  untimely  death.  Persecutions, 
inquisitions,  and  titanic  national  struggles  have 
learned  to  hide  behind  high  motives;  but  nothing  can 
quite  conceal  the  fact  that  this  entire  procedure  is  an 
extension  of  old  barbaric  customs  rooted  in  man's 
animosity  to  man,  which  in  turn  are  an  unconscious 
working  out  of  the  primitive  impulse  to  hold  life 
cheap  and  to  rely  on  procreation  rather  than  creation. 
After  States  were  well  established  they  still  clung 
to  the  policy  of  small  regard  for  individuals.  From 
the  Mosaic  code  with  its  numerous  capital  crimes  to 
Georgian  England  with  its  death  penalty  for  stealing 
is  after  all  not  a  great  step.     Restriction  of  the  death 


68  The  Control  of  Ideals 

penalty  to  really  serious  crimes  is  of  painfully  recent 
date.  Recent  also  is  the  passing  out  of  the  chivalrous 
habit  of  duelling,  when  for  a  word,  a  petty  insult 
or  a  smile  men  threw  their  lives  away — puny  indi- 
viduals thus  bravely  aping  the  prodigality  of  nature. 
How  earth's  forces  would  laugh  at  their  well-trained 
puppets  if  these  forces  but  knew  and  had  a  sense  of 
humour.  The  reason  the  duelling  habit  died  hard 
and  still  persists,  in  lynching  as  an  ungentlemanly 
and  in  the  death  penalty  as  a  legal  survival  of  the 
duel,  is  that  it  was  rooted  in  nature's  logic  if  not  in 
our  own.  We  do  not  easily  achieve  our  mental  in- 
dependence as  a  race,  for  the  marvel  of  this  attitude 
of  prodigality  portrayed  in  dwindling  form  from  con- 
queror to  duellist  is  the  deep-rooted  racial  psychology 
of  it  all.  We  persist  in  following  good  old  Mother 
Earth  who  is  careful  of  the  type,  more  careful  than 
we  are,  but  as  yet  too  clumsy  to  care  aught  for  in- 
dividuals. At  least  so  it  seems  to  us,  but  perhaps  this 
view  is  after  all  incomplete;  for  we  read  earth's 
prodigality  only  in  the  book  of  nature,  in  the  lower 
forms  of  evolution,  in  the  earlier  pages  of  Earthian 
drama,  and  we  forget  that  voices  come  to  us  also 
from  the  inside.  It  has  been  our  error  that  the  still 
small  voice  that  has  been  trying  to  make  itself  heard 
was  for  centuries  referred  to  strange  and  extraneous 
authors,  rather  than  to  the  well-known  terrestrial  pow- 
ers that  have  rough-hewn  this  planet.  Why  cannot 
Earth's  voice  now  be  speaking  to  us  in  our  individual 


Development  of  Self-Consciousness      69 

consciousness,  in  an  effort  to  make  clear  to  us  that 
the  type  is  as  perfect  as  mass  methods  can  make  it, 
and  that  the  only  way  to  develop  it  further  is  through 
the  individual.  After  all,  the  type  is  rough  work; 
it  is  the  John  the  Baptist  of  the  individual;  and  now 
come  the  details  and  the  depth  which  mean  every- 
thing. 

The  whole  process  of  civilization  has  been  one  of 
increasing  the  worth  of  the  individual.  Our  first 
task  has  been  to  make  the  world  safe  for  the  race, 
and  in  this  we  were  aided  by  nature's  method  of  mak- 
ing the  race  and  species  stick  together  as  units,  so 
that  in  mass  combats  we  could  hold  our  own  with 
other  species;  but  now  that  the  physical  world  is 
conquered,  it  is  absurd  to  want  to  go  on  and  conquer 
man  in  the  same  crude  way  that  we  conquered  the 
earth.  It  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  for  man  to 
conquer  man.  If  we  are  to  slay  each  other  ad  in- 
finitum by  the  sword,  it  were  better  that  the  gift  of 
self-knowledge  had  been  given  to  the  birds  or  the 
bees  or  some  other  branch  of  the  animal  kingdom  who 
might  have  used  it  more  intelligently.  Upon  earth's 
conquest  there  should  follow  the  development,  not  the 
decimation,  of  man.  After  the  race  is  secure  our 
motto  should  be:  Make  the  world  safe  for  the  in- 
dividual and  then  Burbank  the  individual.  I  say 
Burbank  the  individual  because  the  race  has  reached 
a  point  where  the  quickest  way  to  improve  it  farther 
is  to  improve  the  individuals.     The  burden  of  the 


70  The  Control  of  Ideals 

constantly  increasing  worth  of  consciousness  is  that 
further  development  means  the  enactment  of  a  post- 
bellum  era  based  on  the  maxim  that  the  most  precious 
thing  on  earth  is  the  human  individual. 


CHAPTER  VII 
SOCIETY  VERSUS  THE  INDIVIDUAL  ^ 

There  are  undiscovered  depths  in  every  human  be- 
ing. No  one  finds  it  easy  to  bring  out  all  that  is  in 
him.  We  talk  with  a  man  and  the  surface  of  his 
being  is  not  even  ruffled ;  it  cannot  be,  for  in  ordinary 
conversation  it  is  impossible  not  to  ride  lightly  over 
the  souls  of  our  fellowmen  as  ships  ride  lightly  over 
the  sea.  Under  other  and  extraordinary  circum- 
stances the  same  man  that  we  have  just  spoken  to 
surprises  us  by  his  sudden  strength,  his  tenderness, 
or  by  some  other  treasure  apparently  brought  up 
from  the  depths  of  his  being.  Human  nature  is  so 
ridh  and  deep  that  no  one  can  justly  say  that  he  knows 
even  one  individual  through  and  through. 

Society  as  at  present  constituted  is  the  result  of  a 
shallow  co-operation  of  individual  human  natures 
working  together  on  the  principle  that  each  display 
and  expend  as  little  of  his  real  self  as  possible.  It 
is  made  up  not  of  men  and  women  but  of  incomplete 

1  By  "society"  in  this  chapter  I  mean  the  more  or  less  man  of 
straw  society  that  consists  of  the  sum  total  of  our  public  selves  as 
expressed  in  the  laws  and  institutions  of  today.  The  position  in- 
tended to  be  brought  out  is  that  the  society  of  today  is  the  merest 
beginning  of  united  effort  and  that  the  greater  glories  of  complete 
co-operation  are  yet  to  be  revealed. 

71 


72  The  Control  of  Ideals 

and  fractional  men  and  women.  Imagine  an  archi- 
tect building  a  house  out  of  nothing  but  odds  and  ends 
and  irregular  pieces  of  wood,  with  never  a  single 
complete  beam  or  part  anywhere.  Would  it  be  sur- 
prising if  the  structure  hung  together  badly?  Thus 
modern  society  is  not  the  sum  total  of  true  humanity, 
for  humanity  is  not  in  it.  It  has  not  yet  reached  that 
stage.  He  who  looks  into  society,  into  public  laws, 
customs,  religions,  and  history  to  find  humanity,  looks 
amiss,  for  there  is  not  a  single  complete  man  or 
woman  in  it.  Society  is  not  a  whole  composed  of  in- 
dividuals any  more  than  the  Panama  Canal  is  the 
Atlantic  and  Pacific  Ocean ;  it  is  merely  the  sum  total 
of  the  few  points  of  contact  between  individuals  who 
prefer  not  to  touch  each  other  profoundly  at  all. 
Sciences  like  sociology,  eugenics,  philosophy  of  his- 
tory, modern  psychology,  and  a  host  of  others  are 
crazy  quilts  pieced  together  from  fragments;  and  any 
inference  drawn  from  them  is  as  likely  to  be  wrong 
as  not.  At  most  they  are  gateways  to  a  larger  science 
for  which  the  data  will  come  in  the  future,  for  as  yet 
a  man's  self  is  in  his  own  soul  rather  than  in  the  hands 
of  his  fellowmen. 

When  a  twelve  horsepower  steam  engine  is  never 
worked  to  more  than  one-twelfth  of  its  full  capacity, 
some  people  are  sure  to  begin  to  think  that  it  is  only 
a  one  horsepower  machine.  By  their  works  you  shall 
know  them,  think  these  modem  savants  who  see  in  this 
more  than  half  slumbering  toy  engine  of  humanity  a 


Society  Versus  the  Individual  73 

clear  revelation  of  man's  innermost  secrets.  Not 
dreaming  of  the  undeveloped  powers  of  man,  they 
see  in  the  doings  of  the  race  up  to  the  present  eternal 
law.  History  is  regarded  as  the  key  to  the  world's 
progress,  and  human  institutions  are  all  looked  upon 
as  sacrosanct,  because  it  is  forgotten  that  we  make 
our  laws  and  institutions  only  to  break  them,  and  that 
in  the  eyes  of  any  sort  of  a  prophet  a  thousand  years 
are  but  a  day.  A  few  millenniums  hence  most  of  our 
present  inviolable  institutions  will  have  been  replaced 
by  better  ones.  It  is  folly  to  worship  too  rigidly  the 
doings  of  man  up  to  the  present,  because  it  leaves  out 
of  account  our  own  transforming  and  transvaluing 
capacities.  Like  the  host  of  living  things  all  around 
us  who  do  not  know  what  they  are  doing,  we  also 
are  only  partially  aware  of  our  own  abilities,  so  that 
the  present  works  of  society  are  a  concealment  rather 
than  a  revelation  of  what  man  is  or  can  do. 

Perhaps  the  feebleness  of  our  concerted  action  is 
also  partially  responsible  for  the  fact  that  separate  in- 
dividuals seldom  exert  themselves  to  full  capacity. 
Only  now  and  then  do  we  have  an  age  in  which  great 
individuals  stand  out.  Ordinarily  the  ingrained  policy 
of  the  millions  is  to  ask  for  royal  roads  and  to  dream 
of  advance  by  wonderfully  easy  and  semi-miraculous 
agencies  that  will  require  little  or  no  exertion  from 
the  separate  units  that  after  all  are  the  only  com- 
ponents of  humanity.  It  is  easy  to  work  for  some  dim 
and  distant  people  of  the  future,  far  off  and  readily 


74  The  Control  of  Ideals 

satisfied;  it  is  hard  to  work  for  the  present  generation. 
It  is  easy  to  work  for  some  "ism"  that  we  hope  will 
blossom  out  in  some  far-off  time,  but  it  is  hard  to  get 
on  with  one's  neighbour.  We  love  perfect  bliss,  but 
seeing  that  its  realization  involves  more  than  a  modi- 
cum of  effort,  we  lend  ourselves  willingly  to  the  theory 
that  bliss  comes  in  the  hereafter;  or  if  we  believe 
in  a  heaven  on  earth,  it  is  the  path  of  least  resistance 
to  hold  that  the  "laws  of  society"  will  bring  this  about 
so  that  the  individual  has  no  burden.  We  love  to 
co-operate  with  the  supernatural  but  not  with  our  fel- 
lowmen  right  here  and  now.  In  our  hearts  we  are 
much  more  afraid  of  each  other  than  we  are  of  the 
devil.     We  are  not  anthropomorphic  enough. 

To  be  anthropomorphic  is  the  doctrine  that  we  must 
limit  our  dream  of  achievement  to  the  truly  human 
but  that  within  these  limits  there  are  endless  vistas  and 
as  yet  undreamed  of  possibilities.  We  cannot  be 
gods,  for  we  are  not  gods;  we  cannot  be  animals  for 
we  are  not  animals.  What  we  can  be  is  human  beings 
and  that  is  sufficient,  for  in  so  doing  we  shall  be  avoid- 
ing on  the  one  hand  the  Charybdis  of  trying  to  be 
more  than  we  can  be,  which  is  destruction;  and  on  the 
other  hand  the  Scylla  of  being  content  with  less  than 
we  can  be  which  is  stagnation — ^between  which  there 
is  no  more  difference  than  between  chopping  a  tree 
down,  or  letting  it  starve  for  want  of  water;  for  both 
mean  death.  It  is  hard  to  say  which  at  present  should 
be  most  severely  condemned:  our  efforts  to  follow  im- 


Society  Versus  the  Individual  75 

possible  ideals  that  lead  to  our  own  destruction  or  our 
efforts  to  get  along  without  any  ideals  at  all  which 
leads  us  back  into  the  sleep  of  animalism.  The  scale 
of  life  from  plants  and  animals  to  man  has  recently 
been  found  to  be  continuous,  and  the  fact  that  there 
is  no  break  between  us  and  the  lower  reaches  of  the 
animal  kingdom  has  made  certain  of  us  overemphasize 
the  material  side  of  life;  but  of  the  two  destructive 
tendencies  inherent  in  a  human  race  that  toward  over- 
animalization  is  only  a  little  less  dangerous  than  that 
toward  over-spiritualization ;  for  again  and  again  it  is 
worth  pointing  out  that  we  live  not  by  bread  alone  and 
that  our  spiritual  food  is  none  the  less  essential  be- 
cause it  can  occasionally  be  abused.  Our  salvation 
lies  in  treading  the  golden  via  media  which  leads 
neither  upward  toward  the  incorporeal  gods  nor  down- 
ward toward  the  unspiritual  animals. 

It  is  necessary  to  care  for  material  things,  but  it 
should  be  clearly  recognized  that  any  race  that  has 
gone  through  a  training  school  of  centuries  of  living 
by  and  for  ideals  can  no  longer  successfully  love  ma- 
terial things  for  their  own  sake.  We  love  them  for 
the  human  values  that  they  stand  for.  The  root  of 
the  material  world  is  money,  but,  after  all,  our  animal 
needs  are  few;  and  after  that  we  love  money  for  what 
it  stands  for  in  the  souls  of  others,  for  the  mock  ap- 
proval which  it  brings,  for  honour,  deference,  power, 
and  beauty,  none  of  which  are  material  things. 
Fame,  another  goal  of  much  endeavour,  is  utterly  com- 


76  The  Control  of  Ideals 

pounded  of  spiritual  incense  carried  by  the  tongues 
of  men;  but  the  thing  we  want  most  in  life  is  love, 
an  intensely  human  commodity  that  like  all  impond- 
erables cannot  be  bought  in  the  market.  Thus  we  are 
drifting  into  the  practice  of  symbolizing  everything  we 
touch,  and  loving  not  the  thing  itself  but  our  own  view 
of  it.  More  and  more  it  is  the  immaterial  part  of  a 
material  world  that  we  become  attached  to,  and  the 
root  and  secret  source  of  all  this  immateriality  is  in 
the  hearts  of  our  fellowmen.  That  is  why  these  fel- 
lowmen  are  becoming  more  and  more  a  desperate 
necessity  to  each  other.  That  is  why  each  generation 
in  an  orgy  of  sacrifice  bequeathes  its  best  riches  to 
the  next  generation,  hoping  for  the  love  and  adoration 
of  those  to  come.  It  is  almost  pathetic  the  way  we 
raise  us  up  human  beings  to  love  us,  just  as  we  raise 
us  grain  to  feed  us;  each  generation  endowing,  edu- 
cating, and  exhorting  its  children,  in  a  mighty  effort 
to  earn  the  crumbs  of  gratitude  that  will  fall  from 
their  table  when  our  day  is  over  and  theirs  will  have 
come.  We  can  no  longer  live  without  the  impond- 
erables with  which  we  supply  each  other.  In  the 
heart  of  humanity  the  self-devouring  material  world 
of  plants  and  animals  is  being  turned  into  a  world 
where  soul  feeds  on  soul,  and  the  deepest  life  impulse 
is  an  insensate  desire  to  enjoy  more  and  more  of 
each  other's  most  intimate  humanity.  To  live  as 
human  beings  more  fully  and  more  abundantly  is 
getting  to  be  our  innermost  craving,  and  this  implies 


Society  Versus  the  Individual  77 

two  things :  insight  enough  to  see  that  it  is  the  spiritual 
and  not  the  material  which  is  the  goal  of  our  striving, 
and  after  we  know  this,  common  sense  enough  to  look 
for  the  spiritual  not  in  the  clouds  but  in  the  hearts 
of  men  right  here  on  earth. 

The  need  for  ideals  and  the  proper  attitude  to 
take  toward  them  cannot  be  too  clearly  stated.  Ideals 
are  not  to  be  overvalued  in  the  sense  that  we  should 
throw  our  lives  away  for  them,  but  on  the  other  hand 
they  are  not  to  be  undervalued  in  the  sense  that  we 
could  get  along  without  them  if  we  wanted  to.  We 
can  no  longer  live  without  ideals  any  more  than  we 
can  live  without  food.  We  are  developing  strange 
appetites  as  strong  and  stronger  than  the  hunger  in  our 
stomachs.  Many  a  man  with  enough  to  eat  has  killed 
himself.  At  the  pinnacle  of  his  ambition  Leo  Tolstoy 
wrote  as  follows: 

"Such  was  the  condition  I  had  come  to,  at  a  time 
when  all  the  circumstances  of  my  life  were  pre-emi- 
nently happy  ones,  and  when  I  had  not  reached  my 
fiftieth  year.  I  had  a  good,  loving,  and  beloved  wife, 
good  children,  and  a  large  estate,  which,  without  much 
trouble  on  my  part,  was  growing  and  increasing;  I  was 
more  than  ever  respected  by  my  friends  and  acquaint- 
ances; I  was  praised  by  strangers,  and  could  lay  claim 
to  having  made  my  name  famous  without  much  self- 
deception.  Moreover,  I  was  not  mad  or  in  an  un- 
healthy mental  state;  on  the  contrary,  I  enjoyed  a 
mental  and  physical  strength  which  I  have  seldom 
found  in  men  of  my  class  and  pursuits;  I  could  keep 
up   with    a   peasant   in   mowing,   and   could   continue 


78  The  Control  of  Ideals 

mental  labour  for  eight  or  ten  hours  at  a  stretch,  with- 
out any  evil  consequences.  And  in  this  state  of  things 
it  came  to  this,  that  I  could  not  live,  and  as  I  feared 
death  I  was  obliged  to  employ  ruses  against  myself 
so  as  not  to  put  an  end  to  my  life." 

It  is  possible  to  object  that  this  was  a  pathological 
case,  but  it  is  impossible  to  get  rid  of  a  fact  by  calling 
it  pathological.  If  to  be  starving  for  spiritual  food 
is  pathological,  then  we  are  all  becoming  more  path- 
ological as  the  years  and  the  ages  roll  by.  Without 
knowing  it,  the  race  is  undergoing  a  rebirth.  It  is 
rising  into  a  sphere  where  men  breathe  not  air  but 
love,  where  men  see  not  things  but  values,  where  we 
do  not  starve  from  lack  of  food  but  from  lack  of  un- 
derstanding and  sympathy.  We  are  being  weaned 
from  living  by  material  things.  Our  food,  the  real 
food  that  we  live  by  and  enjoy  will  presently  be  some- 
thing that  only  mutual  interaction  can  produce.  We 
are  delving  deeper  into  earth's  own  secret  of  per- 
petual motion  and  undying  youth,  and  in  a  sense  we 
have  already  become  self -feeding  machines  with  all 
the  paradoxicality  that  that  implies.  Presently  we 
shall  reach  a  stage  where  progress  in  the  right  direc- 
tion will  establish  us  for  ever,  but  where  a  false  move 
either  upward  or  downward  will  send  us  scampering 
off  the  earth  like  many  a  lesser  race  before  us,  thus 
depriving  us  for  ever  of  the  new  riches  now  for  the 
first  time  after  the  lapse  of  aeons  placed  within  our 
reach.     Our  heaven-sent  imagination,  the  source  of 


Society  Versus  the  Individual  79 

all  our  spiritual  life,  like  a  balloon  tied  to  a  slender 
string,  will  either  soar  away  from  us  for  good,  or 
we  soar  with  it  and  learn  the  art  of  flying.  There  is 
no  third  course.  The  tug  of  the  balloon  is  getting  far 
too  strong.  Either  from  now  on  we  decline  or  a  new 
era  of  undreamt  of  growth  sets  in. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

UTOPIANISM 

Neither  a  cursory  review  of  racial  history  indicat- 
ing the  growth  of  self -consciousness,  nor  a  rapid  an- 
alysis of  what  is  meant  by  society,  suffice  to  bring  out 
the  unique  worth  of  individuals  in  the  post-bellum 
period.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  the  importance 
.of  creeds,  potentates,  and  such  institutions  as  the 
State  has  been  drummed  into  our  ears  so  continuously 
and  persistently  that  we  have  lost  sight  of  the  new 
role  beginning  to  be  played  by  the  individual.  For 
many  hundreds  of  years  enormous  pains  have  been 
taken  to  educate  us  to  a  clear  view  of  the  indispen- 
sability  of  Church  and  State  so  that  we  have  reached 
a  stage  where  we  react  automatically  to  the  majesty 
of  these  institutions  and,  at  least  in  the  case  of  a  State, 
assume  without  examination  that  a  nation  is  greater 
than  the  individuals  composing  it.  In  the  past  such 
an  attitude  may  have  been  necessary;  in  fact,  it  is 
impossible  to  see  how  it  could  have  been  avoided  when 
throughout  all  ages  powerful  minds  have  made  it  their 
business  to  exalt  all  manner  of  States  until  the  entire 
history  of  man  has  become  tinged  with  Utopianism  or 
an  exaggerated  regard  for  the  importance  of  political 

80 


Utopianism  81 


States.  It  need  not  be  doubted  that  States  have  been 
and  still  are  of  tremendous  importance,  but  the  ques- 
tion is:  are  they  eternally  of  the  same  transcendent 
value,  or  do  new  ages  and  new  circumstances  create 
conditions  that  perhaps  call  for  a  gradual  shift  of 
emphasis?  Now  that  the  paths  between  man  and  man 
are  being  straightened,  are  artificial  units  such  as 
States  still  the  absolutely  highest  thing  on  earth  or  are 
they  the  second  highest? 

In  the  past  this  question  has  been  answered  in  only 
one  way.  Symptomatic  of  the  general  temper  of  hu- 
manity have  been  the  great  Utopia-makers  of  history 
who  unequivocally  exalt  the  State  above  all  else.  It 
is  impossible  to  pass  in  review  all  the  men  who  with 
the  magic  of  their  eloquence  have  helped  to  idealize 
the  State,  but  for  purposes  of  illustration  two  men, 
Plato  and  Hegel,  centuries  apart  and  both  fashioners 
of  Utopias,  will  suffice.  Plato's  "Republic"  is  a 
classic  among  Utopias,  and  Hegel's  ethics  likewise  cul- 
minates in  an  almost  orgiastic  exaggeration  of  the 
social  function  of  some  legally  constructed  State. 

For  ages  the  Church  and  the  State  have  been  the 
two  pillars  of  society,  and  what  the  clergy  have  been 
to  the  Church,  Utopians  have  been  to  the  State. 
Their  aim  has  been  to  make  us  fall  in  love  with 
States.  In  the  case  of  Plato  and  Hegel,  the  one  does 
this  by  idealizing  the  outer  form  of  a  State,  and  the 
other  by  idealizing  its  inner  character.  Plato,  with 
the  touch  of  a  dramatist,  gives  us  a  ravishing  picture 


82  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  what  a  model  State  should  look  like,  and  Hegel, 
not  one  whit  less  idealistic  and  impractical  than  Plato, 
gives  us  an  exposition  of  the  spiritual  groundwork  on 
which  he  thinks  a  modem  State  should  rest.  Plato's 
"Republic"  is  a  bare,  harmonious  structure,  in  which 
stark  individuals  are  fitted  together  like  blocks  of 
marble,  and  the  whole  is  as  rigidly  severe  in  outline 
as  a  Greek  temple.  To  be  sure  in  Greek  temples  there 
is  delicate  sculpturing  and  the  lines  are  exquisite,  but 
this  has  its  counterpart  in  Plato's  work  where  in  the 
various  dialogues  many  a  personality  stands  out  with 
the  subtle  grace  and  boldness  of  close  acquaintances 
suddenly  baring  their  inmost  hearts.  Hegel's  struc- 
ture on  the  other  hand,  with  its  buttresses  and  wings 
and  balancing  of  masses,  is  more  like  a  Gothic  cathe- 
dral. His  State  was  composed,  not  of  sheer  indi- 
viduals, but  of  individuals,  families,  and  corpora- 
tions. Using  a  straightforward,  dichotomous  logic, 
Plato  barred  from  his  State  all  that  was  subversive  or 
contradictory;  whereas  Hegel  by  means  of  a  curiously 
modern,  three-cornered  logic  managed  very  well  to 
incorporate  contradictions,  and  when  his  State  was 
finished  it  looked  a  great  deal  like  a  State  based  on 
the  English  Constitution,  for  which  it  is  well  known 
that  Hegel  had  great  veneration.  By  the  time  Utopias 
reached  Hegel  they  were  complex  enough  to  resemble 
natural  growths.  All  this  divergence  need  not  make 
us  lose  sight  of  the  fact  that  the  problem  of  both  of 
these  men  was  to  answer  the  question:     How  can  I 


Utopianism  83 


make  an  ordinary,  everyday  State  seem  not  an  ordi- 
nary, everyday  State,  but  a  thing  divine? 

Both  speak  of  the  State  with  almost  religious  ven- 
eration. To  Hegel  it  is  "der  Gang  Gottes  in  der 
Welt."  All  creation  has  been  in  endless  travail  be- 
fore the  State  was  born,  and  no  deity  or  heavenly 
kingdom  with  its  hierarchy  of  angels  overtops  the 
glory  of  an  earthly  State,  for  God  himself  is  the 
State.  It  is  the  highest  manifestation  of  the  biggest 
thing  he  knows,  namely  Geist  or  God,  who  does  not 
exist  as  something  transcending  the  State  but  rather 
as  something  which  in  man  is  becoming  a  State,  the 
Deity  together  with  man  through  a  sort  of  spiritual 
dialectic  working  out  their  own  salvation ;  so  that  when 
all  is  said  and  done  the  politics  of  Hegel  absorbs  the 
whole  of  his  theology.  In  a  similar  manner  Plato 
makes  all  that  is  divine  contribute  to  the  State,  the 
proper  functioning  of  which  calls  for  virtues  such 
as  can  only  have  been  remembered  from  a  former 
life.  The  State  for  Plato  has  its  rising  and  its  set- 
ting in  two  divine  eternities.  If  Hegel  tries  to  supply 
the  State  with  an  immense  depth  of  spiritual  ground- 
work, Plato  no  less  sets  his  State,  like  a  jewel,  in  the 
midst  of  splendours,  flanking  it  to  the  left  with  Pre- 
Existence  and  to  the  right  with  Immortality.  Every- 
thing that  is  exalted  meets  in  the  human  State  of 
Plato  which  is  the  home  of  righteousness,  the  centre 
of  order,  the  final  end  of  the  rainbow  where  the 
greatest  sum  total  of  human  bliss  is  found.     It  is  only 


84  The  Control  of  Ideals 

in  his  Ideal  State  that  Plato,  that  insatiable  seeker 
after  the  good,  at  last  finds  rest.  Other  cosmic  lov- 
ers of  heroic  type  may  pitch  upon  Personality  or  the 
Uebermensch  or  the  Glory  of  God  as  their  supreme 
desire,  but  Plato  and  Hegel  are  among  those  who  pre- 
pare the  way  for  a  worship  of  the  State. 

In  spite  of  the  intellectual  greatness  of  these  two 
men  and  others  like  them,  the  whole  galaxy  of  build- 
ers of  artificial  States  is  out  of  date.  In  a  day  of 
personality  and  character,  Utopias  fashioned  out  of 
manikins  and  legal  fictions  lose  their  ring  of  truth  and 
jangle  out  of  tune.  All  States  and  nations  con- 
structed either  on  paper  or  in  reality  have  in  them  an 
element  of  artificiality  and  incompleteness,  bound  to 
render  them  unfit  to  be  worshipped  as  patterns  in  too 
uncritical  a  spirit.  If  we  hark  back  far  enough,  they 
are,  as  we  have  seen,  the  counterparts  of  ancient 
heathen  idols  which  in  the  eyes  of  former  worshippers 
seemed  perfect,  but  which  to  us  now  seem  but  crude 
idealizations  of  the  average  primitive  man.  Not  one 
of  them  is  as  palpitatingly  true  or  real  as  a  single 
human  being. 

Of  course,  for  a  latter-day  Utopian  like  Hegel  it  is 
impossible  to  over-emphasize  a  State,  because  to  him 
an  individual  exists  only  in  the  State,  owes  every- 
thing to  the  State,  and  without  the  State  is  less  than 
nothing.  To  this  once  more  the  only  reply  is  that 
some  sort  of  a  political  State  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  life  of  man,  but  that  the  same  thing  may  be  said 


Utopianism  85 


of  such  simple  substances  as  air  and  water.  They  too 
are  absolutely  essential,  for  we  cannot  live  without 
them,  yet  who  lives  for  air  and  water?  Who  idealizes 
them  or  gives  up  his  life  for  them?  Utopians  are 
wrong  in  picking  out  the  State  as  the  one  thing  in 
the  universe  greater  than  individuals,  for  such  a  view 
rests  on  a  false  analysis  of  the  function  of  ideals  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  man.  Before  looking  at  man 
writ  large  in  the  State,  Plato  might  better  have  ex- 
amined a  little  more  closely  the  small  print  in  the 
heart  of  each  individual;  and  before  deciding  that  the 
starting-point  of  ethics  is  the  community,  Hegel  might 
better  have  stopped  to  look  more  closely  into  the  na- 
ture of  these  human  beings  out  of  which  so  glibly  be 
built  up  his  Juggernaut;  for  the  centre  of  humanity 
is  within  man,  in  its  private  rather  than  its  public 
life,  and  whosoever  builds  a  universe  in  which  this 
centre  is  misplaced,  builds  nothing  but  a  house  of 
cards. 

From  what  happens  when  States  crumble  it  is  pos- 
sible to  get  a  glimpse  of  why  externalized  Utopias  are 
artificial.  The  fall  of  Greece  was  a  prelude  to  the 
rapid  rise  and  then  still  greater  fall  of  the  Roman 
Empire,  and  when  Rome  fell  men  turned  not  to  a  new 
Republic  but  to  Christianity.  Christianity  had  in  it 
such  stuff  as  made  Utopias  look  pale.  What  Utopia 
allowed  each  man  to  be  more  himself  than  ever  be- 
fore? What  Utopia  had  a  ruler  who  treated  rich  and 
poor  alike  and  took  a  personal  interest  in  all  his  sub- 


86  The  Control  of  Ideals 

jects?  Who  ever  before  had  heard  of  a  place  where 
the  first  were  last  and  the  last  first,  where  the  rich 
could  hardly  enter,  and  the  meek  inherited  the  earth? 
This  was  not  a  kingdom  but  a  place  where  men  could 
feel  at  home  and  grow  in  grace  and  inner  wisdom. 
Under  Christianity  men  developed  rich  inner  lives 
consisting  of  chivalry,  honour,  personality,  and 
conscience,  all  of  which  constituted  a  genuine  step  for- 
ward because  they  allowed  more  scope  to  the  in- 
dividual. 

One  indication  that  Hegel  is  a  recession  from  the 
lesson  taught  by  Christianity  is  the  fact  that  he  once 
more  tried  to  do  away  with  personal  conscience  and 
to  substitute  for  it  the  public  conscience  of  a  people 
as  expressed  in  public  laws.  He  tried  to  save  Chris- 
tianity by  pouring  what  he  thought  were  its  spiritual 
riches  into  the  fine  old  pagan  mould  of  Plato's  Re- 
public, and  the  result  was  a  bigger,  grander,  and  even 
more  hopelessly  artificial  State  than  ever.  Hegel 
drew  the  wrong  lesson  from  a  Christianity  which  was 
never  meant  to  be  a  kingdom  of  this  earth.  Prayers, 
vigils,  battles  with  conscience,  regenerations,  and 
other-worldliness  are  things  which  make  man  not  more 
but  less  of  a  social  animal.  They  enable  him  to  live 
in  monasteries,  quietly  on  books,  or  drive  him  out  to 
the  desert  or  to  Nature.  The  real  fruits  of  this  re- 
ligion, whose  founder  refused  to  be  King,  are  for- 
giveness, humility,  and  love  of  enemies — all  of  which 
are  aids  to  the  development  of  inner  consciousness. 


Utopianism  87 


but  poison  to  nationalism.  It  is  impossible  to  graft 
these  fruits  upon  the  dead  stalk  of  Plato's  Republic, 
as  Hegel  did,  and  expect  them  to  grow.  Their  nat- 
ural soil  is  the  individual,  not  the  State. 

The  fall  of  a  world  empire  was  followed  by  de- 
velopment and  assimilation  of  a  world  religion  which, 
however,  was  only  one  of  a  number  of  great  move- 
ments that  all  went  to  enrich  the  inner  life  of  in- 
dividuals. As  a  factor  of  world  wide  influence, 
Christianity  has  had  to  cede  the  centre  of  the  stage 
to  the  melee  of  modem  industry,  science,  and  art, 
none  the  less  intensively  spiritual  because  they  are 
secular.  Science  has  come  with  a  greater  onrush 
than  any  previous  movement  since  the  world  began. 
Ever  since  science  has  stopped  looking  in  the  clouds 
for  the  philosopher's  stone,  it  has  through  its  immense 
practicality  become  a  ministering  angel  that  does 
more  than  any  other  single  agency  toward  making 
our  everyday  life  agreeable.  It  has  become  human- 
ized and  interesting  to  the  multitude.  In  the  last 
two  hundred  years  we  have  learned  more  about  our 
earth,  our  ancestors,  our  history,  our  body,  our  brain, 
our  subconscious  self,  and  about  everything  pertain- 
ing to  us,  than  we  did  in  all  the  years  preceding; 
and  knowledge  means  first  interest  and  then  insight. 
Like  religion,  science  is  getting  us  all  interested  in 
things  we  never  dreamed  of  before,  and  the  result  is 
that  we  become  more  interesting  to  each  other  and 
that  our  human  life  is  deepened. 


88  The  Control  of  Ideals 

■ 

Both  science  and  art  are  to  be  classed  with  religion 
because  like  religion  they  are  anti-sectional  and  uni- 
versal. In  this  they  breathe  the  modem  spirit  which 
is  that  of  co-operation  from  one  end  of  the  earth  to 
the  other.  Another  similarity  is  that  they  deepen  the 
inner  life  of  the  humblest  of  us,  for  beauty  and  truth 
are  independent  of  great  riches  and,  like  religion,  are 
accessible  to  all  who  have  but  ears  to  hear  and  eyes 
to  drink  them  in.  Art  is  especially  fortunate  in  its 
infinite  capacity  for  glorifying  little  things.  In  this 
it  is  more  than  a  match  for  religion,  for  in  a  way  the 
Bible  was  the  first  great  novel  ever  written,  and  the 
same  spiritual  struggles  that  illuminate  its  pages  are 
now  poured  forth  into  our  novels,  dramas,  comedies, 
and  poetry.  Why  should  not  the  literature  of  the 
whole  world  be  the  legitimate  successor  of  the  start- 
lingly  precocious  literature  of  a  single  people  that 
for  centuries  has  fed  the  Occident?  The  first  enlight- 
enment followed  the  Hebrew  Scriptures;  the  second 
came  when  to  these  Scriptures  were  added  the  liter- 
atures of  Greece  and  Rome;  and  the  third  will  come 
when,  no  longer  wedded  to  political  idols,  we  begin  to 
assimilate,  live  by,  and  enjoy  our  own  literatures 
which  under  our  eyes  have  been  turning  into  a  power- 
ful new  gospel  of  humanity.  Men  have  been  pouring 
their  hearts  into  books,  statues,  and  pictures,  until 
limned  in  art  there  stands  ready  for  our  use  the  open 
record  of  each  other's  hearts.  Especially  the  modern 
novel  has  become  more  and  more  the  medium  through 


Utopianism  89 


which  we  watch  other  lives  unfold  and  behold  those 
invisible  and  yet  so  intensely  human  struggles  and 
actions  that  can  be  portrayed  only  by  an  imagination 
steeped  in  sympathy.  Our  literature  is  the  only  work 
proceeding  from  the  hand  of  man  that  fully  keeps  up 
with  our  spiritual  development.  It  is  our  least  ar- 
tificial creation,  and  therefore  it  is  significant  that  our 
literature  has  descended  from  hero  worship  to  char- 
acter worship.  Like  sculpture,  which  has  run  the 
gamut  from  Phidias  to  Rodin,  from  immortal  statues 
with  impassive  faces  to  ugliness  instinct  with  spiritual 
beauty,  so  literature  has  passed  from  the  unreal  to  the 
human,  from  externals  to  internals,  from  plots  to 
character,  motives,  loves,  thoughts,  and  hates,  until 
the  whole  groundwork  of  human  values  comes  to  light. 
Art  and  science  are  tending  more  and  more  toward 
an  enrichment  of  our  personal  life  and  an  increase 
of  insight  into  the  immense  value  of  individuals  to 
each  other. 

The  whole  significance  of  our  spiritual  labour,  as 
exhibited  in  art  and  science,  comes  to  a  head  in  our 
pathetic  attempt  to  pass  them  on  untarnished  to  suc- 
ceeding generations.  They  are  our  spiritual  riches, 
the  only  thing  in  the  world  that  makes  us  interesting  to 
each  other,  and  thus  in  an  agony  of  endeavour  we  be- 
queath them  to  our  children,  lest  we  rear  us  sticks 
and  stones  instead  of  human  beings.  That  is  the 
secret  of  the  gigantic  effort  made  to  educate  each  suc- 
ceeding generation  up  to  the  level  of  those  preceding 


90  The  Control  of  Ideals 

it,  for  we  need  that  which  education  does  to  an  in- 
dividual; namely,  develop  his  inner  life  to  a  point 
where  it  can  understand  and  mingle  with  our  own. 
We  can  no  longer  be  happy  with  animals  or  savages; 
hence  our  own  children  must  have  our  own  inner 
world  inside  of  them,  so  that  we  may  enjoy  them  and 
they  us.  Thus  only  can  we  live  and  live  more 
abundantly  as  each  generation  replaces  the  old  one 
in  a  world  where  more  and  more  we  shall  have  to  be 
all  in  all  to  each  other.  And  now  that  many  nations 
are  wrecked  and  another  would-be  world  empire  has 
fallen,  the  call  to  march  ahead  on  the  road  blazed 
by  Christianity  and  further  opened  up  by  modern  art 
and  science  once  more  comes  clear  and  strong;  and 
the  only  alternative  to  marching  forward  on  this  road 
is  to  march  back  into  the  olden  days  of  fire,  pillage, 
and  slaughter,  of  primitive,  insane,  ferocious  animal- 
ism of  which  we  have  just  had  such  a  costly  reminder 
and  from  which,  before  the  new  light  of  individual 
self-consciousness  dawned  upon  us,  there  was  no 
escape. 


CHAPTER  IX 

DEMOCRACY 

Cohesion  keeps  the  world  intact.  In  the  form 
of  gravitation  it  operates  between  the  tiniest  atoms 
and  the  mightiest  suns,  so  that  all  these  entities  can 
form  the  great  universe  of  which  our  solar  system 
with  its  minute  earth  and  its  still  more  minute  in- 
stitutions is  but  an  insignificant  part.  These  forces 
of  cohesion  flow  also  through  our  own  veins  and 
brains  when,  as  human  beings,  we  find  that  on  the 
one  hand  we  are  immeasurably  alone  and  on  the  other 
hand  irresistibly  drawn  to  each  other.  As  far  back 
as  memory  goes,  the  members  of  the  human  race  have 
been  to  some  extent  instinctively  gregarious.  Like 
the  whiff's  of  nebulous  matter  that  cling  together  and 
form  swirling  clouds  long  before  a  solid  planet  is 
ready  to  take  form,  so  human  beings  have  always 
huddled  together  in  clusters  of  varying  shape  and 
size  long  before  the  comparatively  modem  days  of 
world  powers  and  internationalism.  Recently  such 
modem  inventions  as  books,  tunnels,  telephones,  rail- 
ways, liners,  ocean  fliers,  and  national  newspapers 
have  welded  us  more  closely  together  than  ever  before 

until  the  whole  human  world  has  become  a  network 

91 


92  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  individuals  totally  dependent  upon  each  other 
for  hundreds  of  things  essential  to  life  and  happiness. 
Co-operation  has  increased  both  our  comforts  and  our 
wants,  and  some  day  in  the  not  too  distant  future,  as 
measured  by  a  universe  that  toils  a  billion  years  over 
a  cockle  shell,  the  all-pervading  forces  of  cohesion 
will  twist  us  human  beings  into  an  organization  so 
tight  that,  like  the  parts  in  a  Swiss  watch,  every  cog 
and  every  member  in  the  human  race  will  be  essential. 

Elements  of  this  fundamental  drift  are  being  im- 
bedded into  our  institutions,  one  of  which  is  democ- 
racy, a  form  of  government  whose  fundamental  prin- 
ciple, bound  to  come  to  the  surface  in  time,  is  that 
the  people  and  every  single  unit  composing  it  are 
sacred.  Not  until  the  notion  that  even  the  humblest 
of  us  has  his  little  role  to  play  adumbrated  faintly 
through  all  the  strata  of  society  was  the  ground  ripe 
for  such  an  institution  as  democracy,  which  demands 
that  in  the  game  of  life  no  man  be  counted  out.  De- 
mocracy is  the  name  now  given  to  the  theory  that 
every  man  has  an  inalienable  right  to  life,  liberty,  the 
pursuit  of  happiness,  and  as  many  other  rights  and 
blessings  as  are  not  inconsistent  with  these  funda- 
mental ones. 

First  democracies  have  seen  this  truth  imperfectly. 
An  institution  such  as  slavery  played  an  important 
part  in  bringing  to  a  head  the  fine  culture  of  ancient 
Greece,  and  for  that  matter  slavery  was  not  abolished 
in  our  own  democracy  till  1864.     As  a  general  rule 


Democracy  93 


the  principle  of  democracy  is  merely  laid  down  in 
broad  lines  and  lived  up  to  more  or  less  roughly 
until  gradually,  in  the  marrow  of  our  bones,  we  begin 
to  feel  what  it  means  that  the  individual  is  sacred. 
The  slow  but  inevitable  abolition  of  slavery  is  but  an 
instance  of  how  this  principle  is  permeating.  Little 
by  little  we  learn  that  certain  ways  of  thinking  and 
acting  are  inconsistent  with  the  program  laid  down 
for  ourselves,  and  then  we  abolish  the  institution  em- 
bodying these  obnoxious  practices.  A  democracy  is 
not  necessarily  a  paradise  on  earth.  All  it  has  thus 
far  managed  to  be  is  a  form  of  government  of  which 
the  cornerstone  is  solid  and  eminently  capable  of  sup- 
porting tier  upon  tier  of  great  emancipations.  Yes- 
terday we  abolished  slavery,  tomorrow  we  shall 
abolish  war.  Democracy  does  not  solve  all  prob- 
lems at  a  stroke,  but  it  does  give  every  human  being 
a  chance  to  contribute  to  the  solution;  and  that  in 
itself  is  an  enormous  advance.  Wisdom  no  longer 
dies  with  the  King. 

It  is  one  thing  to  say  that  each  individual  is  worth 
something  and  therefore  ought  at  least  to  be  allowed 
to  live,  and  quite  another  thing  to  say  that  each  in- 
dividual is  worth  as  much  as  any  other.  Making  de- 
mocracy a  synonym  for  indiscriminate  equality  has 
done  more  than  any  other  single  error  in  leading 
democracies  astray;  it  has  led  nascent  democracies 
to  insist  on  all  sorts  of  minor  rights  while  they 
lost  sight   of   the  one  essential,   fundamental   right 


94  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  individuals  to  life.  It  is  due  to  this  error 
that  not  only  war,  but  wars  for  petty  issues,  are 
still  with  us.  Democracy  does  not  mean  that  all 
men  are  equal  but  only  that  they  are  equal  to  a  certain 
clearly  defined  extent.  Just  because  each  man  has 
a  vote  is  no  sign  that  each  man  is  a  Daniel  Webster. 
When  we  give  each  man  the  right  to  live  and  perhaps 
also  to  vote,  that  merely  means  that  up  to  a  certain 
level  all  men  are  presumed  to  be  equal;  it  does  not 
mean  that  some  men  may  not  grow  far  beyond  this 
ordinary  level  required  to  breathe  and  cast  a  vote. 
Democracies  assume  that  every  human  being  has 
enough  intelligence  to  do  certain  things  such  as  pursue 
life,  liberty,  and  happiness,  or  however  the  constitu- 
tion of  any  particular  democracy  may  phrase  it,  but 
these  democracies  would  perish  unless  some  indi- 
viduals did  more  than  that.  Certain  minimum  re- 
quirements are  laid  down,  and  these  are  followed  by 
certain  rights  enjoyed  by  all,  because  all  are  sup- 
posed to  have  these  minimum  requirements;  but  this 
does  not  mean  that  those  who  have  abilities  far  above 
this  minimum  may  not  be  of  immensely  greater  value 
to  their  fellowmen.  All  men  have  certain  funda- 
mental similarities,  but  for  the  rest  it  is  far  more 
true  that  all  men  are  unequal  than  that  they  are 
equal.  No  two  faces,  no  two  characters,  no  two 
abilities  are  alike.  Even  in  the  smallest  natural 
groups  of  society,  such  as  the  family,  one  member  is 
the  father,  the  other  the  mother,  and  the  third  the 


Democracy  95 


child,  and  the  function  as  well  as  the  place  that  each 
occupies  is  strikingly  different.  The  pith  of  a  de- 
mocracy is  not  that  it  denies  these  differences,  but 
that  in  the  midst  of  this  vast  inequality  it  has  found 
one  or  two  respects  in  which  all  men  are,  and  to 
eternity  can  be,  consistently  equal. 

By  insisting  upon  this  grain  of  fundamental  equal- 
ity, democracy  has  checked  the  wild  excesses  of  the 
much  older  doctrine  that  all  are  unequal  and  in  no 
respect  alike.  Long  before  democracy  with  its  em- 
phasis on  certain  rights  for  every  member  of  the 
human  family  obtained  a  foothold,  the  other  theory 
which  saw  no  element  of  similarity  between  high-bom 
and  low,  pauper  and  prince,  elect  and  damned  held 
sway,  it  was  openly  preached  and  practiced  that  cer- 
tain men  have  an  absolute  right  over  the  life  and  lib- 
erty of  others.  There  have  been  eras  in  which  tyrants 
ruled  like  gods.  But  the  doctrine  does  not  always 
take  on  the  severe  form  of  tyranny  and  despotism. 
In  a  milder  way  a  man  like  Carlyle,  by  stressing  the 
inequality  of  man,  came  to  his  well-known  views  on 
hero-worship  and  to  his  theory  that  history  is  at  bot- 
tom the  history  of  great  men.  This  view  has  in  it 
so  much  of  truth  that  it  may  as  well  be  admitted  with- 
out more  ado  that  Carlyle  was  not  wrong  in  his  in- 
sistence on  the  deep-going  inequality  of  man,  but  that 
he  erred  solely  and  uniquely  in  his  view  that  this  was 
inconsistent  with  democracy.  The  mistake  lies  in 
thinking  that  a  great  deal  of  inequality  may  not  be 


96  The  Control  of  Ideals 

consistent  with  an  even  more  striking  equality.  The 
fact  that  men  are  not  equal  in  all  respects  does  not 
exclude  the  possibility  that  under  their  skins  or  in  a 
very  elemental  way  they  may  all  be  alike.  Although 
no  two  of  us  have  similar  faces,  yet  we  all  belong  to 
the  class  of  animals  having  backbones  and  a  breath 
that  fails  us  at  the  end  of  seventy  years;  that  is:  we 
are  all  perishable  vertebrates  though  we  may  not  all 
be  hardshell  Baptists  or  Republicans.  A  more  rad- 
ical exponent  of  inequality  was  Nietzsche  who  held 
that  under  all  circumstances  the  herd  should  rightly 
be  sacrificed  to  the  superman  who  in  turn  is  enjoined 
to  have  no  tenderness.  The  superman  is  the  final, 
much-to-be-desired  goal  of  all  evolution,  and  one  such 
a  child  of  the  dawn  is  worth  millions  of  slaves. 

It  is  commonly  thought  that  Nietzsche's  views  are 
directly  opposed  to  those  of  that  apostolic  Christianity 
which  he  so  violently  attacked,  and  the  fundamental 
virtues  of  which  are  supposed  to  be  humility  and  a 
naive  non-resistance  to  the  evils  of  a  world  wrongly 
regarded  as  ephemeral.  As  a  matter  of  fact  from  the 
point  of  view  of  a  theory  of  society  the  two  are  sup- 
plementary rather  than  irreconcilable,  for  both  justify 
the  self-sacrifice  of  individuals,  one  by  instructing  the 
supermen  to  demand  it  and  the  other  by  instructing 
the  herd  not  to  withhold  it;  and  both  therefore  violate 
the  cardinal  principle  of  what  democracy  is  coming 
to;  namely,  a  sacred  regard  for  the  life  of  the  in- 
dividual.    Nietzsche  preached  the  deified  superman. 


Democracy  97 


and  primitive  Christianity  taught  mortals  the  proper 
attitude  to  assume  towards  a  deity;  the  result  is  that 
unintentionally  both  doctrines  dovetail,  producing  a 
combination  of  terrific  force  and  practicality  which 
several  times  in  history  has  worked  nothing  less  than 
miracles  of  destruction — look  at  the  stupendous  havoc 
wrought  by  Napoleon  and  his  adoring  soldiers.  The 
combination  of  these  two  doctrines  confirming  and 
acquiescing  in  bottomless  inequality,  gives  us  a  po- 
litical philosophy  that  is  among  the  things  that  work, 
but  work  too  deadly  well,  and  is  likely  to  result  in 
establishing  for  ever  a  world  in  which  carnage  rules 
and  the  few  flourish  at  the  expense  of  the  many. 

All  theories  of  radical  inequality,  untempered  by 
democracy,  must  sooner  or  later  advocate  brute  force 
as  the  final  arbiter  of  human  destinies.  If  men  are 
not  even  equal  to  the  minimum  extent  that  all  are 
human  beings  with  the  right  to  live,  then  any  part  of 
humanity  that  can  demolish  any  other  part  has  the 
right  to  do  so  and  to  hold  its  winnings;  but  let  us 
hope  that  the  great  war  has  put  a  final  quietus  on  this 
theory  that  might  is  right  and  that  brute  force  is  the 
only  ultimate  way  of  deciding  human  questions;  on 
the  other  hand  an  over-readiness  to  suffer  and  accept 
our  lot  is  just  as  fatal  as  the  theory  that  a  man  with 
giant  strength  should  use  it  as  a  giant.  Senseless 
self-sacrifice  should  never  be  required.  In  the  past 
it  may  have  been  necessary  that  many  men  should  die 
for  others,  just  as  a  stone  age,  a  bronze  age,  and 


98  The  Control  of  Ideals 

slavery  were  necessary  to  bring  us  where  we  are 
today,  although  all  the  practices  of  these  bygone  ages 
are  now  not  only  obsolete  but  harmful.  In  this  de- 
veloping world  of  ours,  a  thing  that  was  good  in  one 
age  need  no  longer  be  so  in  another  age  in  which  the 
whole  complexion  of  humanity  has  changed.  It  may 
be  true  that  through  inordinate  self-sacrifice  we  have 
learned  to  deepen  our  love  for  each  other,  just  as 
through  slavery  we  learned  useful  habits  of  hard 
work,  but  from  this  it  does  not  follow  that  supreme 
self-sacrifices  should  go  on  for  ever,  any  more  than 
that  slavery  should  become  an  eternal  institution  be- 
cause in  its  day  and  age  it  brought  us  a  great  boon. 
Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  that  he  lay  down  his 
life  for  his  friend  still  stands,  but  in  a  post-bellum 
age  it  is  unfair  that  such  proofs  should  be  required  or 
such  practices  erected  into  a  doctrine. 

Somehow  we  are  all  beginning  to  feel  that  the  right 
way  lies  somewhere  between  sentiment  and  force. 
There  is  a  middle  ground  between  militarism  and 
pacifism,  between  too  much  self-sacrifice  and  too 
much  self-assertion,  toward  which  we  are  slowly  feel- 
ing our  way.  Here  the  first  of  all  democracies  which 
lived  its  little  day  in  a  less  complex  time  may  shed 
some  light.  When  Greek  civilization  was  at  its  height 
Pericles  is  supposed  to  have  ruled  Athens  not  by  force 
but  by  persuasion.  The  Greeks  trusted  neither  to  the 
heart  nor  to  their  strong  right  arm  alone,  but  they 


Democracy  99 


had  faith  in  their  mental  powers,  in  their  clear-seeing 
eyes  which  could  divine  a  road  to  walk  upon  and  in 
their  marvellous  eloquence  which  could  point  out  this 
road  to  others  and  make  them  delight  in  walking  on 
it  also.  The  Greek  theory  of  persuasion,  as  an  in- 
strument for  exerting  rational  power  over  others,  oc- 
cupies a  middle  ground  between  brute  force  and 
senseless  submission,  and  as  such,  for  articulate  hu- 
man beings  able  to  communicate  their  own  insights 
to  others,  it  cannot  be  improved.  The  art  of  per- 
suasion as  part  of  the  role  played  by  free  discussion 
in  a  democracy  cannot  be  overemphasized. 

Much  of  what  the  Greeks  were  driving  at  was  em- 
bodied by  the  Romans  and  succeeding  peoples  in  their 
system  of  jurisprudence  and  law-courts,  but  the  whole 
movement  of  free  discussion  has  gradually  taken  a 
turn  and  narrowed  itself  to  a  method  of  dealing  spe- 
cifically with  criminals  and  people  hardly  amenable 
to  persuasion.  Thus  everywhere  force  has  had  to 
come  to  the  aid  of  the  law,  and  the  real  elements  of 
free  persuasion  have  had  to  work  out  their  own  salva- 
tion elsewhere.  In  dealing  with  the  undeveloped,  the 
irrational,  and  the  criminal  persuasion  will  always 
have  to  be  supplemented  by  force,  but  in  the  domain 
of  free  men  things  are  moving  in  the  right  direction 
when  steps  are  once  more  taken  to  establish  interna- 
tional instruments  of  persuasion  to  which  men  submit 
freely  because  they  see  the  right.     Signs  are  not  want- 


100  The  Control  of  Ideals 

ing  to  indicate  that  the  minds  of  men  are  once  more 
being  opened  to  argument,  and  that  the  old  Greek 
method  of  ruling  each  other  and  wooing  prosperity 
by  persuasion  may  yet  come  into  its  own. 


y  >    1  1  > 

I  II'     \ 

1  )  1    1    >         ' 


CHAPTER  X 

TOLERANCE 

A  beneficent  influence  of  the  practice  of  persuasion 
by  argument  has  been  to  bring  into  the  world  that 
most  modem  of  all  the  great  virtues,  tolerance,  the 
genesis  of  which  is  well  described  by  an  English, 
writer  in   the  following  terms: 

"Tolerance  too  is  learned  in  discussion;  and  as  his- 
tory shows,  is  only  so  learned.  In  all  customary  so- 
cieties bigotry  is  the  ruling  principle;  in  rude  places  to 
this  day  any  one  who  says  anything  new  is  looked  on 
with  suspicion,  and  is  persecuted  by  opinion  if  not  in- 
jured by  penalty.  One  of  the  greatest  pains  to  human 
nature  is  the  pain  of  a  new  idea:  it  is,  as  common  peo- 
ple say,  so  'upsetting';  it  makes  you  think  that  after 
all  your  favourite  notions  may  be  wrong,  your  firmest 
beliefs  ill-founded;  it  is  certain  that  till  now  there  was 
no  place  allotted  in  your  mind  to  the  new  and  startling 
inhabitant,  and  now  that  it  has  conquered  an  entrance 
you  do  not  at  once  see  which  of  your  old  ideas  it  will 
or  will  not  turn  out,  with  which  of  them  it  can  be 
reconciled  and  with  which  of  them  it  is  at  essential 
enmity.  Naturally  therefore,  common  men  hate  a  new 
idea,  and  are  disposed  more  or  less  to  ill-treat  the  or- 
iginal man  who  brings  it.  Even  nations  with  long 
habits  of  discussion  are  intolerant  enough:  in  England, 
101 


102    .•  ;;.'ithe  Control  of  Ideals 

•  ;•;  ivherjej  there -is  jtvn  the  whole  probably  a  freer  discus- 
sion of  a  greater  number  of  subjects  than  ever  was 
before  in  the  world,  we  know  how  much  power  bigotry 
retains.  But  ...  if  we  know  that  a  nation  is  capable 
of  enduring  continuous  discussion,  we  know  that  it  is 
capable  of  practising  with  equanimity  continuous  tol- 


Tolerance,  an  enlightened  form  of  liberty,  is  a  com- 
pound of  love  and  understanding  born  from  the  free 
development  of  the  individual.  In  the  shape  of  re- 
ligious tolerance  it  is  woven  into  the  very  texture  of 
our  own  democracy.  One  of  the  reasons  why  men 
came  to  America  was  to  enjoy  freedom  of  worship, 
and  to  this  aim  they  clung  when  all  of  the  colonies, 
finally  united,  decreed  that  religion  was  to  be  a  per- 
sonal matter  and  that  each  man,  regardless  of  what 
church  he  was  a  member,  could  still  be  as  good  a 
citizen  as  anybody  else.  This  far-sighted  policy  has 
contributed  no  little  toward  increasing  among  us  the 
blessings  of  liberty. 

The  question  of  religious  wars  and  persecutions 
could  be  settled  in  no  other  way  than  by  making  re- 
ligion the  affair  of  the  individual  with  which  the 
State  or  the  nation  was  not  concerned.  The  process 
by  which  the  new  freedom  was  obtained,  consisted 
in  taking  religion  out  of  public  life  and  finding  it  a 
place  within  the  ever  growing  sphere  of  private  life. 
Much  this  same  sort  of  thing  has  been  going  on  since 

1  Walter  Bagehot,  "Physics  and  Politics.*' 


Tolerance  103 


time  immemorial  in  the  history  of  civilization,  during 
which  we  developed  from  members  of  a  primitive 
tribe  with  no  personal  life  at  all  into  members  of 
prosperous  States,  jealous  of  government  interference 
in  the  affairs  of  our  inner,  complex,  personal  lives. 
One  by  one,  by  breaking  the  shackles  of  public  cus- 
tom, private  rights  and  liberties  were  gained  at  the 
expense  of  public  tyrannies. 

In  the  same  way  we  shall  get  rid  of  wars — by  mak- 
ing private  issues  out  of  public  ones.  In  the  midst 
of  the  Reformation  it  was  hard  to  see  how  religious 
tolerance  could  ever  come  about;  and  in  the  same 
way,  after  the  greatest  war  in  history,  it  is  hard  to 
see  how  wars  will  ever  recede;  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  political  wars  will  some  day  be  as  unreal  to  us  as 
ecclesiastical  auto-da-fe  and  burnings  at  the  stake  are 
now.  Some  day  the  reasons  for  which  millions  have 
been  for  centuries  asked  to  lay  down  their  lives  will 
seem  a  matter  of  personal  choice,  making  little  dif- 
ference one  way  or  another;  for  our  stature  as  human 
beings  is  capable  of  broadening  out  in  ways  that  at 
the  moment  we  may  not  suspect.  In  the  light  of  his- 
tory and  past  achievements,  it  seems  not  impossible 
that  there  may  come  a  day  when  each  will  enjoy  his 
own  nationality,  without  rancor,  without  continual 
chips  upon  his  shoulders,  without  those  prickly 
ceremonial  fences  that  make  for  easily  wounded 
pride;  just  as  today  each  man  enjoys  his  own  pipe, 
his  own  religion,  his  own  school  of  art,  and  his  own 


104  The  Control  of  Ideals 

favourite  authors.  One  grain  of  international  hu- 
mour may  be  the  catalyst  that  will  change  the  troubled 
situation  of  today  into  the  peaceful  calm  of  tomorrow. 
Nations  represent  types  of  individuals,  and  the  day 
may  come  when  each  will  join  the  type  that  he  likes 
best  and  in  so  doing  promote  the  interest  of  all. 

Making  a  public  issue  out  of  a  private  one  does  not 
necessarily  mean  making  it  a  dead  issue.  There  are 
thousands  of  live  private  issues  among  human  beings 
with  which  the  public  has  little  to  do.  How  can  it  be 
otherwise  when  the  source  of  life  and  growth  and  all 
new  interests  is  in  the  individual?  All  great  issues 
are  hatched  in  the  heart  of  the  individual;  there  have 
been  prophets  with  dreams  and  visions  that  they  dared 
tell  no  one;  there  have  been  ideals  that  could  at  first 
be  communicated  only  to  a  few  select  disciples  who 
then  spent  centuries  of  mission  work  before  the  dream 
became  a  world  force.  Thus  gospels  are  spread,  both 
big  and  little  ones,  and  some  gospels  never  sit  well 
upon  a  multitude.  As  long  as  men  have  strongly 
diversified  interests  how  can  the  same  spiritual  meat 
satisfy  all?  There  are  throughout  the  universe  great 
powers  of  differentiation  second  in  strength  only  to 
the  powers  of  cohesion,  and  from  them  flow  the  forces 
of  toleration  that  break  up  tyrannies  and  turn  us  into 
sharply  outlined  individuals  who  need  our  liberties 
as  we  need  the  air  we  breathe.  The  day  of  tribes  with 
a  single  totem  and  a  few  unwritten  laws  is  over;  for 
there  are  now   on   earth  millions   of  highly   diff'er- 


Tolerance  105 


entiated  individuals,  all  potential  incubators  of  new 
ideas  and  ideals,  some  of  which  fit  small  groups  and 
some  of  which  fit  nations  but  all  of  which  must  be 
developed,  for  they  are  among  the  most  precious  of 
our  possessions.  All  over  the  world  next  to  the  old 
and  powerful  nations  there  are  little  nations  spring- 
ing up,  and  the  tendency  of  today  is  toward  a  tol- 
erance that  allows  the  small  nation  as  many  rights 
as  the  big  one.  The  next  step  in  this  wave  of  tol- 
erance will  be  to  allow  greater  liberty  to  all  sort  of 
group  formations  other  than  the  nations,  that  is:  to 
encourage  the  free  development  of  art,  industry, 
science,  and  all  the  immensely  variegated  activities  of 
normal  human  beings. 

The  first  blind  gropings  of  this  non-national 
consciousness  have  given  rise  to  strange  anomalies. 
Dimly  conscious  of  a  desire  to  be  different  from  the 
old  regime  and  as  yet  not  hardy  enough  to  be  anything 
but  a  reversion  to  remote  types,  men  in  some  coun- 
tries are  fanning  the  flames  of  an  aboriginal  class 
consciousness  that  sets  its  face  like  flint  against  all 
diff'erentiation.  This  goes  back  of  mediaeval  guilds, 
back  of  primitive  tyrants,  to  the  kind  of  bondage  in 
which  animals  are  held  by  the  chains  of  a  class  in- 
stinct which  compels  each  member  of  a  species  blindly 
to  repeat  the  acts  of  every  other  member.  The  at- 
tempt to  iron  out  all  the  century-wrought  distinctions 
between  man  and  his  neighbour  goes  back  of  the  ants 
and  the  bees  to  the  buffaloes  who  stupidly  grazed  in 


106  The  Control  of  Ideals 

herds,  a  prey  to  the  first  white  man  that  came  along. 
Long  ago  we  fought  our  way  up  from  the  animals 
through  the  instrumentality  of  hero-men  who  dared  to 
be  different  and  defy  the  edicts  of  the  tribe;  and 
through  the  innovations  invented  by  these  men  and 
gradually  adopted  by  the  tribe  the  spirit  in  which 
they  worked  was  kept  alive.  Thus  the  tyranny  of 
herds  was  broken,  and  whenever  a  single  tyrant 
usurped  the  power  that  formerly  was  held  by  a  whole 
tribe  that  tyrant  lost  his  head.  Through  the  eternal 
vigilance  which  is  the  price  of  liberty  the  tyranny  that 
formerly  prevailed  en  masse  was  gradually  attenuated 
to  a  few  sporadically  reappearing  demagogues,  ty- 
rants, and  oligarchies  against  whom,  since  the  early 
lispings  of  democracies,  the  sovereign  people  have^ 
had  to  be  on  guard.  How  absurd  then  is  the  attempt 
to  get  rid  of  a  single  tyrant  or  a  bureaucracy  by  reel- 
ing back  into  a  class  tyranny  that,  by  all  the  laws  of 
civilization,  has  been  dead  for  whole  millenniums. 

It  is  not  by  breaking  up  the  nations  into  new 
classes,  with  a  more  deadly  hatred  fqr  each  other 
than  ever  before,  that  we  are  reborn  into  the  kingdom 
of  grownups.  A  savage  class  tyranny  that  levels  by 
main  force  can,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  no  longer 
be  successful,  for  the  day  of  the  dodo  is  over;  and  the 
harmonious  co-operation  of  the  highly  specialized  in- 
dividuals of  today  is  a  problem  far  too  complex  to  be 
solved  by  the  crass  methods  of  our  antediluvian  an- 
cestry.    Certain  things  have  been  achieved,  such  as 


Tolerance  107 


beauty,  culture,  liberty,  tolerance,  and  these  must  be 
retained.  The  way  to  peace  and  growth  lies  through 
a  greater  tolerance  of  all  for  all,  of  the  rich  for  the 
poor  and  the  poor  for  the  rich,  of  the  weak  for  the 
strong  and  the  strong  for  the  weak;  for  we  are  all 
mortals  here  below,  whirling  through  space  on  a  frag- 
ile planet,  and  as  long  as  possible  there  must  be 
room  for  us  all.  The  bond  of  our  common  mor- 
tality, of  our  common  and  appalling  ignorance  in  the 
face  of  cosmic  mysteries  everywhere  surrounding  us, 
ought  to  make  us  love  and  tolerate  each  other.  We, 
the  children  of  death,  fighting  for  our  life  on  an  un- 
known and  possibly  hostile  planet,  have  no  business 
to  obscure  the  issue  by  new  civil  wars  and  civil 
hatreds  between  groups  other  than  the  nations;  for  it 
is  time  that  we  turn  as  a  race  to  the  task  of  the  race 
which,  as  I  understand  it,  is  to  fathom  the  secrets 
of  the  universe. 


CHAPTER  XI 
HARMONY 

What  the  world  lacks  most  is  harmony.  War  is 
dissonance.  It  is  easy  to  say  that  in  some  respects 
we  are  all  alike  and  in  others  we  are  all  different, 
but  what  good  does  this  do  unless  it  is  shown  how, 
with  such  material,  harmony  can  be  produced.  The 
notes  that  go  to  make  up  a  song  are  also  in  one  way 
all  alike  and  in  another  way  all  different,  yet  of  what 
avail  is  this  knowledge  to  a  musician  whose  only  aim 
is  to  create  from  these  elements  masterpieces  of 
melody.  The  significant  thing  about  notes  is  that  if 
you  put  them  together  in  one  way  you,  get  noise  and 
in  another  way  you  get  harmony.  What  the  world 
needs  is  not  an  analyst  to  point  out  that  men  are  both 
alike  and  different,  but  an  expert  in  cosmic  composi- 
tion who  will  tell  us  how  to  combine  this  mass  of  men 
in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  harmony  instead  of  a 
ghastly  clanging. 

The  problem  of  how  to  reduce  the  world  to  harmony 
is  insoluble  unless  we  have  a  clear  idea  of  what  is 
meant  by  harmony.  One  of  the  best  ways  to  come  to 
clearness  on  the  kind  of  harmony  that  best  fits  the 
deepest  needs  of  mortals  is  to  pass  in  review  some  of 

108 


Harmony  109 


the  definitions  of  harmony  that  have  come  to  men 
throughout  the  ages  as  a  result  of  hard  thought  based 
on  observation.  Clearcut  answers  to  the  simple  ques- 
tion of  what  harmony  is  are  surprisingly  few.  There 
have  been  many  rootless  fancies  and  innumerable  full 
descriptions  of  chimerical  realms  where  all  of  a  sud- 
den "the  morning  stars  sang  together  and  all  the  Sons 
of  God  shouted  for  joy,"  but  these  are  not  the  answers 
of  sober  reflection.  The  kind  of  harmony  that  leads 
to  the  control  of  human  ideals  is  not  a  narrow  or  a 
technical  thing.  It  must  be  a  harmony  as  broad  as 
the  universe,  with  the  deepest  laws  of  Mother  Earth 
behind  it,  and  not  too  far  removed  from  chemistry 
and  physics.  Unless  the  harmony  we  seek  be  funda- 
mental and  in  the  best  sense  of  that  term  of  the  earth 
earthy,  we  can  never  make  it  prevail;  for  we  are 
earthlings  through  and  through.  If  we  ever  succeed 
at  our  cosmic  task  of  learning  to  control  our  own 
destinies  it  will  be,  not  through  blowing  this  earth 
away  and  creating  a  new  one,  but  merely  by  reading 
more  deeply  the  secrets  of  our  nature  and  the  nature 
around  us  until  the  key  to  complete  control  drops  into 
our  hands. 

The  people  who  began  to  do  that  are  the  Greeks. 
A  harmony  loving  race  accustomed  to  look  deep  into 
the  heart  of  things,  they  tried  to  translate  some  of  the 
rhythms  of  nature  into  their  own  lives  and  we  today 
are  still  copying  their  arts  and  institutions.  Their 
studies  are  of  profound  significance  to  us  because  in 


110  The  Control  of  Ideals 

genuine  insight  as  well  as  in  artistic  achievement  we 
have  as  yet  by  no  means  hopelessly  outdistanced  the 
Greeks.  Two  of  the  simplest  answers  some  of  the 
earlier  Greeks  gave  to  the  question  of  what  harmony 
is  were  to  the  effect  that  it  was  at  bottom  either  a  kind 
of  condensation  and  rarefaction  or  a  mysterious  mix- 
ing and  blending  of  elements. 

To  children  of  a  modem  age  these  answers  seem 
crude.  They  may  be  crude,  just  as  the  original 
statues  of  the  Greeks  were  crude,  but  they  are  not 
so  false  as  some  of  our  later  and  much  more  elaborate 
answers  are.  To  the  old  mystical  assertion  that  all 
things  are  at  bottom  one  the  scientifically  minded 
Greeks  gave  an  expression  so  simple  and  concrete 
that  the  meanest  day  labourer  could  understand  it. 
All  things  are  one  because  they  are  made  of  a  stuff 
that  can  condense  and  stretch — that  was  their  first 
solution,  squarely  emphasizing  the  naturally  Protean 
aspect  of  things.  No  wonder,  said  they,  that  things 
appear  to  be  different  when  in  reality  they  are  all 
beautifully  one,  for  sometimes  you  see  water  con- 
dense as  ice  and  earth  and  other  solid  things,  the  sea 
casting  up  pebbles  and  the  rivers  their  alluvial  earth, 
and  at  other  times  water  is  rarefied  into  tenuous 
liquids  or  even  gases  such  as  steam,  air,  wind,  and 
spirit.  Is  not  our  breath  moist  and  does  not  the  body 
return  to  the  dust  from  whence  it  came?  Thus  at  a 
stroke  soul  felt  its  kinship  to  the  clod.     A  realm  em- 


Harmony  111 


bracing  such  wide  variants  as  solid  rock  and  human 
breath  was  to  the  mind's  eye  reduced  to  harmony  be- 
cause of  the  simple  principle  that  all  things,  including 
ourselves,  are  made  of  a  stuff  that  can  compact  and 
rarefy  itself  apparently  at  will.  This  simple  solution 
covers  greater  extremes  and  cuts  deeper  than  many  a 
modem  philosophy.  In  modern  times  for  long  per- 
iods it  has  been  the  fashion  to  say  that  if  sin  had  not 
entered  the  world  all  men  would  have  been  good  and 
therefore  happy.  Some  of  our  most  widely  diffused 
modern  ideals  of  harmony  are  based  on  a  sort  of 
idiotic  uniformity  whereby  all  men  are  enjoined  to 
copy  a  single  pattern,  the  more  remote  and  impossible 
the  pattern  the  better,  as  if  harmony  consisted  merely 
of  sameness.  The  Greeks  in  their  simple  solutions  at 
least  saw  that  harmony  implies  a  wide  diversity. 

Their  second  solution  has  the  same  merit.  Hard 
upon  the  Milesians,  who  held  that  the  world  was 
composed  of  a  stuff  that  could  condense  and  rarefy, 
came  the  Pythagoreans  who  through  a  study  of  mus- 
ical notes  stumbled  upon  an  apparently  deeper  and 
richer  way  in  which  varying  elements  could  be  ren- 
dered harmonious.  If  the  strings  of  a  lyre  were  of 
the  right  length,  the  notes  blended  into  chords,  and 
the  lengths  of  the  proper  strings  were  found  to  cor- 
respond to  the  intervals  between  well-known  numbers. 
Harmony  thus  came  to  be  a  matter  of  proportion,  a 
combining  of  elements  according  to  definite  mathe- 


112  The  Control  of  Ideals 

matical  laws  of  proportion — ^not  as  simple  a  process 
as  condensation  and  rarefaction  but  in  its  results  pro- 
founder  and  more  far-reaching. 

The  secret  of  the  process  was  contained  in  the 
word  "blending"  or  "mixing,"  and  in  most  in- 
genious ways  this  new  theory  was  applied  to  a 
host  of  phenomena,  just  as  we  today  apply  new 
natural  laws  to  whole  realms  that  formerly  seemed 
without  order.  For  instance  to  these  early  think- 
ers health  also  was  a  sort  of  harmony  result- 
ing from  the  proper  mixture  of  humours  in  the 
body.  The  whole  art  of  medicine  consisted  in  ad- 
ministering remedies  that  would  restore  the  balance 
of  these  humours  that  through  illness  had  been  dis- 
turbed. From  this  to  a  picture  of  social  health  and 
justice  such  as  that  exhibited  in  Plato's  "Republic"  or 
even  to  the  well-known  Aristotelian  doctrine  of  virtue 
as  a  golden  mean  between  two  evils  is  but  a  step. 
The  direct  descendants  of  these  earlier  thinkers,  how- 
ever, were  the  atomists  who  promulgated  the  doctrine 
that  the  whole  world  was  at  bottom  composed  of  bits 
of  matter  all  properly  blended  and  mixed  to  form 
the  universe  as  we  find  it.  The  world  to  them  was  a 
symphony  of  atoms.  These  atoms  could  not  be  seen 
by  the  naked  eye,  but  what  of  that  to  a  race  accus- 
tomed to  seeing  hidden  harmonies  everywhere.  In 
certain  circles  of  the  old  Greek  world  the  word 
"atoms"  for  these  bits  of  matter  all  formed  from  the 
same  substance  but  different  in  size,  shape,  and  posi- 


Harmony  113 


tion  and  all  beautifully  blended  into  endlessly  vary- 
ing combination  became  a  word  to  conjure  with.  Have 
we  advanced  far  beyond  that?  The  rise  of  modern 
science  has  not  entirely  swept  away  the  old  atomic 
theory  stated  in  essentials  by  Leucippus  and  Demo- 
critus.  It  appears  that  the  Greeks  here  hit  upon  a 
foundation  still  fit  to  build  upon/ 

The  salient  point  in  these  old  theories  was  that  the 
inventors  founded  their  theories  of  harmony  upon  the 
rock  of  things  as  they  are.  Their  idea  of  what  har- 
mony should  be  was  related  to  the  actual  world  as  they 
saw  it  and  as  we  still  see  it  today.  It  allowed  for 
diversity;  and  whatever  the  harmony  we  want  may 
be,  it  must  be  consistent  with  human  growth  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  implies  the  liberty  of  the  human  in- 
dividual to  live  and  develop  his  own  personality  in 
a  world  that  also  more  and  more  shall  be  compelled 
to  supply  the  ever  extending,  multifarious  wants  of 
man.  The  best  modem  thinkers  accept  these  points. 
In  general  the  modem  world  in  its  thinking  on  such 
fundamental  problems  as  how  to  achieve  harmony 
tends  to  emphasize  the  world  within  rather  than  the 
world  without  as  did  the  ancient  Greeks.  Our  way 
of  expanding  ancient  scientific  thought  has  been  to 
add  and  magnify  the  human  element.  This  shift  of 
emphasis  can  best  be  brought  out  by  considering  one 
or  two  representative  modems  such  as  Leibnitz  and 

1  In  this  fragmentary  exposition  I  follow  John  Burnet  whose  bril- 
liant studies  of  Greek  thought  are  bound  to  be  an  inspiration  to 
future  students  of  this  subject. 


114  The  Control  of  Ideals 

Bergson  both  of  whom  by  some  stretch  of  the  imagina- 
tion might  be  called  modem  atomists.  If  two  of  the 
ancient  solutions  of  the  problem  of  harmony  were 
"condensation  and  rarefaction"  on  the  one  hand  and 
"mixing  and  blending"  on  the  other,  we  might  say 
that  modem  thinkers  would  choose  such  words  as 
"integration"  and  "creative  evolution"  as  technical 
terms  for  the  process  the  whole  travailing  earth,  in- 
cluding humanity,  is  going  through  in  arriving  at 
harmony  and  happiness. 

Leibnitz  was  a  physicist  who  achieved  fame  by  giv- 
ing us  among  other  things  the  first  fairly  adequate 
definition  of  force.  With  this  modern  notion  of 
force  in  his  head  he  based  himself  squarely  upon  the 
ancient  atomism,  breathing  new  life  into  this  vener- 
able structure  by  saying  that  to  be  sure  the  whole 
world  was  composed  of  marvellously  interacting  atoms 
but  atoms  of  force  not  of  matter.  The  atoms  com- 
posing our  grand  harmonious  universe  were  to  him 
centres  of  self-originating  force  which  for  purposes 
of  distinction  he  called  monads.  The  modern  touch 
was  that  he  made  his  atoms  not  dead  but  alive.  Our 
own  soul,  he  thought,  was  one  of  these  monads  of 
which  there  are  many  kinds  ranging  from  the  soul  of 
minerals  to  the  soul  of  man.  For  us  who  know  our 
own  inner  complex  life  so  well  it  is  easier  to  see  how 
a  multitude  of  living,  stmggling  monads  might  work 
out  their  own  salvation  into  eventual  harmony  than 
to    accept   the   more   materialistic   atomism    of   the 


Harmony  115 


Greeks.  Dead  atoms  cannot  construct  a  universe;  it 
takes  live  atoms  with  inherent  powers  of  organization. 
It  was  in  attempting  to  solve  this  problem  of  how 
out  of  an  acorn  grows  an  oak,  out  of  a  germ  a  man, 
and  out  of  monads  a  universe,  that  Leibnitz  was  hot  on 
the  trail  of  what  in  most  of  his  works  he  seeks  to 
explain;  namely,  the  secret  of  harmony  or  growth; 
and  at  this  point  the  mathematician  in  him  came  to  the 
aid  of  the  physicist.  Leibnitz  is  known  in  the  field  of 
mathematics  as  the  discoverer  among  other  things  of 
the  integral  calculus.  His  close  study  of  infinitesi- 
mal points  in  mathematics  led  him  to  give  his  monads 
or  "metaphysical"  points  similar  constructive  attri- 
butes. Just  as  a  line  is  presumably  made  up  out  of 
points  not  themselves  lines,  so  the  world  is  an  in- 
tegration of  monads  quite  distinct  from  the  separate 
monads  uncombined,  and  the  secret  of  the  process  by 
which  the  world  is  thus  blended  into  harmony  is  con- 
tained in  the  word  "integration."  All  growing  or 
progress  in  harmonization  is  a  process  of  combining 
elements  in  such  a  way  as  to  produce  something  as 
distinct  from  these  elements  themselves  as  a  song  is 
different  from  its  notes.  A  song  is,  so  to  speak,  not 
a  mere  addition  but  an  integration  of  notes.  As  the 
eye  of  an  artist  fuses  a  landscape  into  a  unified  im- 
pression of  beauty,  so  to  the  mind  of  Leibnitz  the 
world  was  a  fusion  or  integration  of  monads  into  a 
unified  and  artistic  whole.  His  specific  advance  on 
older  atomists  consisted  in  rejecting  such  relatively 


116  The  Control  of  Ideals 

imperfect  findings  as  condensation  or  blending  and 
substituting  the  keyword  integration  which  he  held  to 
be  diiferent  from  mere  summation  as  really  contain- 
ing some  inkling  of  the  long  sought  after  secret  of 
harmony. 

The  human  application  of  all  this  comes  out  in 
considering  the  further  advance  of  Bergson,  a  more 
recent  thinker.  For  Bergson  also  it  is  from  the  fever 
called  living  that  dead  things  are  best  explained;  rest 
is  derived  from  motion,  space  from  time,  the  simple 
from  the  complex;  and  in  all  problems  it  is  the  living, 
palpitating  consciousness  in  our  hearts  of  these  prob- 
lems that  comes  first.  Not  by  the  dead  atoms  of 
Democritus  are  mysteries  finally  solved;  a  better  un- 
derstanding is  obtained  by  beginning  with  the  atom 
that  each  in  his  heart  feels  himself  to  be.  "Know 
thyself,"  said  Solon,  and  to  this  modem  sages  includ- 
ing Bergson  have  added  the  assurance  that  then  we 
shall  also  know  more  about  everything  else,  for  the 
kingdom  of  knowledge  is  within  us. 

Leibnitz  tried  to  give  life  and  meaning  to  his  atoms 
by  explaining  how  each  atom  has  perception,  how  it 
can  integrate  and  organize  other  atoms,  and  how  in- 
tegration is  never  a  mere  summation  or  plain  addition. 
It  is  this  quality  that  Bergson  further  expatiates  upon. 
For  him  integration  becomes  a  process  not  unlike 
human  intuition  whereby  in  a  flash  fragments  are 
fused  into  a  thing  of  beauty.  Through  its  perhaps 
unconscious  intuitions  our  universe  achieves  its  unity. 


Harmony  117 


In  artists  and  mystics  this  activity  bubbles  over.  If 
the  whole  of  creation  were  conscious  it  might  feel 
within  itself  some  of  the  intuitive  gropings  which  an 
artist  feels  in  creating  a  masterpiece.  This  process 
of  universal  intuition  Bergson  calls  creative  evolution. 
What  is  the  difference  between  ten  nonsense  words 
placed  in  a  row  and  ten  similar  words  that  make 
sense  and  form  a  sentence?  The  difference  is  that 
the  former  are  only  added  while  the  latter  fuse  in 
such  a  way  as  to  convey  a  thought  and  have  an  inner 
meaning.  It  is  the  same  in  music  where  the  separate 
notes  blend  into  a  unified  harmony.  It  is  the  same 
with  all  art.  Beauty  that  the  old  Greeks  sought  is 
this  tremulous  unity  achieved  when  the  parts  interfuse 
and  no  longer  stand  merely  side  by  side.  All  genuine 
works  of  art  produce  on  us  an  overwhelmingly  unified 
impression  most  difficult  to  analyse.  It  is  the  same 
with  all  great  human  movements.  Ten  men  who 
stand  side  by  side  as  strangers  without  co-operation 
have  no  meaning,  whereas  ten  men  unified  by  a  pur- 
pose and  mutually  complementary  form  a  unity  very 
similar  to  that  of  k  great  work  of  art.  Human  beings 
may  become  the  vehicle  for  the  universal  vital  im- 
pulse that  bursts  out  everywhere  working  for  semi- 
understood  and  half -accomplished  ends,  that  has  gone 
one  way  in  producing  the  birds,  another  way  in  in- 
sects, and  another  way  in  the  blind  alleys  formed  by 
species  of  life  now  extinct.  In  us  this  impulse  goes 
furthest  of  all  which  is  but  one  reason  the  more  why 


118  The  Control  of  Ideals 

it  is  proper  to  begin  with  ourselves  in  trying  to  solve 
life's  deeper  mysteries. 

The  social  side  of  Bergson's  atomism  or  creative 
evolution  has  never  been  developed  but  the  main  out- 
lines such  a  development  would  take  are  easy  to 
foreshadow.  In  different  guise  all  great  ethical 
teachers  have  been  trying  to  inculcate  a  principle 
similar  to  integration  and  creative  evolution  when 
they  exhort  people  to  lay  aside  hatred  and  to  help 
instead  of  hinder  each  other.  Christian  ethics  calls  it 
love,  Schopenhauer  calls  it  pity,  Buddhists  call  it  the 
killing  off  of  individual  desire.  It  is  true  that  if  all 
our  neighbours  were  less  strangers  to  us  and  more  like 
brothers,  much  disharmony  would  cease.  But  it  is 
not  enough  to  love  each  other  blindly;  each  must  feel 
that  his  fellowman  is  a  part  of  himself;  each  must 
feel  that  the  gift  enriches  the  giver  and  that  he  is 
getting  something  for  his  self-sacrifice.  Instead  of 
genuine  interpenetration  that  makes  for  the  enrich- 
ment of  all,  there  has  been  a  great  deal  of  onesided 
sacrifice,  a  throwing  away  of  self  on  other  people.  It 
is  as  if  the  ten  nonsense  words  in  an  heroic  endeavour 
to  give  meaning  to  a  sentence  each  tried  to  surrender 
his  own  meaning  to  the  word  right  next  to  him, 
whereas  it  is  only  by  first  of  all  being  ourselves  and 
then  at  the  same  time  both  utilizing  and  aiding  our 
neighbour  that  there  is  anything  approaching  true  in- 
tegration and  harmony. 

It  will  be  asked  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the 


Harmony  119 


control  of  ideals;  and  the  answer  is  that  it  is  exactly 
our  great  ignorance  of  what  harmony  really  consists 
of  that  lies  at  the  bottom  of  the  condition  of  affairs 
by  which  we,  at  this  day  and  age,  allow  our  ideals  to 
get  so  completely  out  of  hand  that,  instead  of  con- 
trolling them,  they  control  us.  We  think  ideals  are 
a  fine  thing — and  we  are  right — but  we  forget  that 
ideals  like  notes,  unless  controlled,  produce  dis- 
harmony instead  of  concord.  We  do  not  go  deep 
enough  in  the  solution  of  our  practical  problems. 
The  roots  of  war  and  other  discords  lie  in  hazy  no- 
tions of  what  we  are  trying  to  achieve  and  of  what  is 
good  for  the  soul  of  humanity.  In  seeking  to  avoid 
war  we  are  feeling  our  way  toward  universal  har- 
mony, and  it  is  well  to  realize  that  the  essence  of 
harmony  consists  in  the  close  co-operation  of  dis- 
similar units.  If  the  elements  that  co-operate  are  too 
similar  the  result  is  thinness,  stagnation,  and  death. 
Symphonies  cannot  be  built  up  from  the  endless  repe- 
tition of  the  same  note  on  identical  instruments.  If 
nothing  on  earth  were  allowed  to  be  truly  different, 
if  all  females  were  males,  all  air  water,  or  all  earth 
air,  where  would  we  be,  where  would  anything  be? 
Thorough  differentiation  is  essential  to  that  fulness 
of  harmony  for  which  we  all  in  our  hearts  are  seek- 
ing. On  the  other  hand,  too  great  a  disparity  in  com- 
ponent parts  makes  for  dissolution.  It  is  well  to  re- 
member that  in  all  forms  of  atomism  the  atom  is  per- 
force inviolate.     The  fundamental  doctrine   of  the 


120  The  Control  of  Ideals 

sacredness  of  individual  life  is  indispensable  in  at- 
taining the  goal  that  we  have  put  before  us;  for 
human  lives,  as  we  shall  presently  see,  are  the  atoms 
of  the  human  universe,  the  sole  source  and  origin  of 
such  harmony  as  we  as  a  race  may  ever  hope  to 
achieve. 


CHAPTER  XII 

SYMBIOSIS 

The  problem  of  inequality  among  the  living  and 
dead  things  all  around  us  is  solved  in  nature  every 
day.  After  all,  the  different  parts  of  the  world  do 
hang  together  and  there  is  a  certain  kind  of  harmony 
revealed  in  the  continued  existence  of  our  planet  where 
the  strong  and  the  weak  live  together  and  whole  king- 
doms interact.  Plants  feed  animals  and  animals  feed 
plants.  "All  that  is  alive  must  die,  and  all  that  is 
dead  must  be  disintegrated,  dissolved,  or  gasefied ;  the 
elements  which  are  the  substratum  of  life  must  enter 
into  new  cycles  of  life.  .  .  .  One  grand  phenomenon 
presides  over  this  vast  work,  the  phenomenon  of  fer- 
mentation." ^  Without  the  plants  to  feed  upon,  ani- 
mals including  ourselves  could  not  live,  and  without 
the  ceaseless  work  of  various  bacteria  in  decompos- 
ing organic  matter  plants  would  be  robbed  of  their 
sustenance.  The  plant  and  the  animal  world, 
whipped  into  working  together,  are  but  illustrations 
of  those  gigantic  processes  of  give  and  take  which 
underlie  the  universe,  and  which  are  at  bottom  a  sort 
of  harmony. 

1  Pasteur  quoted  by  Dr.  H.  Byrd  in  "An  Appreciation  of  Louis 
Pasteur,"  Record  Company,  St.  Augustine,  Fla.,  1910,  p.  10. 

121 


122  The  Control  of  Ideals 

To  this  harmony  of  the  spheres  our  own  planet, 
keyed  up  to  a  pitch  in  which  the  centripetal  impulse 
always  just  slightly  exceeds  the  centrifugal  forces, 
contributes  its  own  wild  melody  wherein  attraction 
overcomes  repulsion  and  love  is  always  triumphing 
over  hate.  All  through  inorganic  nature  runs  the 
ethics  of  the  dust,  no  less  complex  and  romantic  than 
our  own.  There  is  a  chaos  of  squirmings,  tropisms, 
and  struggles  to  fly  apart,  but  in  the  final  test  the 
union  of  component  parts  is  everywhere  maintained. 
The  chemist  in  his  laboratory  spends  a  lifetime  fa- 
miliarizing himself  with  the  capricious  behaviour  of 
atoms  which  sometimes  agree  to  co-operate  and  some- 
times refuse.  Students  of  crystallization  and  elec- 
tricity encounter  the  same  helter  skelter  of  opposing 
forces  which  pick  and  choose  their  way  at  random, 
but  in  the  end  manage  to  work  together  so  that  the 
keynote  even  of  the  inorganic  is  co-operation. 

In  the  world  of  living  things  where  co-operation 
reaches  a  new  level,  there  is  a  veritable  fury  of  effort 
to  strike  off"  continually  new  illustrations  of  how  dif- 
ferent bits  of  matter  can  be  fused  into  unity  and  made 
to  work  together  for  the  common  good.  If  our  earth 
has  any  specialty,  it  is  that  of  producing  countless  liv- 
ing organisms,  all  so  many  experiments  in  detailed 
co-operation.  The  separate  organisms  may  fight  each 
other  but  within  the  organism  there  is  peace  perhaps 
of  brief  duration,  for  death  is  always  stepping  in, 
but  of  a  profound  and  blind  intensity  while  life  en- 


Symbiosis  123 


dures.  The  whole  of  the  animate  world  is  more  of 
a  passion  for  life  than  a  struggle  for  life,  in  which 
there  is  trespassing  not  through  hatred  but  through 
love,  through  a  primeval  and  undisciplined  love  of 
self.  This,  however,  is  becoming  weaker  as  the  world 
goes  on;  and  co-operation  coupled  with  self-abnega- 
tion increases  until  the  problem  is  not  how  to  practise 
self-abnegation  but  how  to  keep  our  own  personalities 
intact — how  to  keep  from  becoming  blind  cogs  in  a 
great  machine  that  will  hurl  us  all  to  death  unless  we 
retain  intelligent  control,  and  ourselves  determine 
whither  the  world  with  its  intricate  organizing  powers 
shall  lead  us.  In  our  mortal  bodies  the  eye  is  dif- 
ferent from  the  hand,  the  digestive  from  the  cir- 
culatory tract;  and  yet  this  masterpiece  of  creation 
with  its  hundreds  of  component  parts  different  in 
shape,  texture,  and  function  in  a  few  years  stops 
growing,  while  the  impulse  of  life  passes  over  into  our 
spiritual  activities  which  now  also  have  become  almost 
as  complex,  almost  as  diversified  as  the  infinite  tissue 
of  our  bodies.  It  almost  seems  at  the  present  time 
that  we  have  stopped  growing  spiritually,  and  then 
what  is  there  left  but  death ;  and  if  we  die  our  planet 
can  only  begin  all  over  again  a  billion  year,  agonized 
effort  to  create  another  agent  with  a  brain  like  ours 
and  enough  sense  to  go  on  developing  that  brain  until, 
through  a  race  of  more  than  ordinary  wisdom,  plane- 
tary self-determination  is  at  last  attained. 

The  crux  of  earth's  problem  lies  in  the  mental  life 


124  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  human  beings.  All  that  has  gone  before  helps  a 
little  in  the  way  of  illustration  and  analogy,  but  no 
single  example  of  what  has  preceded  human  beings  is 
adequate  as  a  guide  for  a  species  that  stands  at  the 
head  of  both  animate  and  inanimate  creation,  and 
which,  therefore,  must  come  to  a  point  where  the  in- 
dividuals of  that  species  blaze  forth  their  own  trail, 
cleancut,  and  unafraid.  Every  parallel  based  on  liv- 
ing organisms  is  misleading,  for  humanity  is  not  an 
organism.  An  organism  is  conscious  at  some  central 
point,  but  the  human  race  is  conscious  in  every  in- 
dividual cell  and  has  no  central  heart  or  brain.  Even 
if  the  organization  of  the  race  should  ever  become  any- 
where near  as  complete  as  that  between  the  parts  of  a 
single  human  body,  we  should  still  be  a  super-organ- 
ism, different  in  nature  and  structure  from  any  known 
living  animal,  and  as  high  above  the  present  animals 
as  these  are  above  the  plants ;  for  there  would  be  levels 
and  depths  of  consciousness  such  as  it  is  impossible 
for  us  to  imagine  in  our  present  state  of  imperfect 
co-operation. 

Meanwhile  slightly  better  analogies  occur  in  the 
social  life  of  some  animals  and  plants  such  as  lichens 
and  birds  and  bees.  In  the  lichens  two  plants  by 
forming  an  alliance  in  which  one  furnishes  protec- 
tion and  the  other  food  manage  to  function  practically 
as  one,  and  succeed  in  turning  themselves  into  a  com- 
bination that  outdoes  the  single  plant  in  hardiness 
and  perseverance  so  that  the  lichen  grows  where  other 


Symbiosis  125 


plants  would  die.  Strains  of  such  pioneer  co-opera- 
tion run  all  through  nature;  the  importance  of  the 
role  played  by  countless  parasites  is  only  beginning 
to  be  understood.  Examples  of  plants  and  animals, 
such  as  flowers  and  bees,  aiding  each  other  in  ways 
that  are  mutually  beneficial  are  easy  to  find,  for 
every  one  knows  of  the  part  played  by  insects  in  dis- 
tributing the  pollen  of  flowers;  but  more  striking  still 
is  the  co-operation  between  members  of  the  same 
species  in  the  so-called  social  insects  which  in  some 
ways  lead  a  co-operative  life  more  perfect  and  more 
harmonious  than  the  life  of  man. 

One  thing  that  a  small  amount  of  observation  of 
such  animals  as  the  ants,  wasps,  and  bees  is  sufficient 
to  bring  out  is  that  human  beings  have  no  monopoly 
on  unselfishness.  Ants  make  ropes  of  themselves, 
drop  food  down  from  heights,  work  in  relays,  com- 
municate with  each  other  through  their  antennae,  and 
set  out  on  enterprises  in  which  the  whole  tribe  turns 
out  as  one.  Their  care  for  the  cleanliness  of  the 
growing  young  and  their  promptness  in  removing  the 
dead  show  sanitary  instincts,  but  the  most  remark- 
able thing  about  life  in  an  ant  colony  is  said  by  ob- 
servers to  be  the  complete  and  apparently  willing  sup- 
pression of  the  individual  for  the  good  of  the  colony. 
Among  bees  the  same  thing  holds.  No  one  can  read 
Maeterlinck's  "Life  of  the  Bee"  without  being  pro- 
foundly impressed  by  the  ways  in  which  bees  obey 
what  he  calls  the  spirit  of  the  hive.     In  the  sacrifice 


126  The  Control  of  Ideals 

of  individuals  for  the  welfare  of  all  the  bee  colony 
surpasses  all  human  comprehension  of  self-abnega- 
tion. Yet  who  would  want  to  be  a  bee  or  a  wasp? 
After  all,  their  life  is  in  our  hands.  These  animals 
show  that  the  social  instinct  can  be  overdone. 

This  interchange  of  function  between  living  agents 
which  operates  to  the  mutual  benefit  of  each  party, 
without  going  to  the  extent  of  depriving  the  partici- 
pants of  their  own  life,  is  what  humanity  also  has 
been  trying  its  hand  at  almost  since  the  beginning. 
Division  of  labour  has  turned  us  all  into  specialists 
with  special  likes,  dislikes,  abilities,  and  capacities. 
Through  becoming  a  saving  race  with  a  surplus  for 
each  generation  we  have  gradually  reached  the  ro- 
mantic point  where  we  enjoy  the  fruits,  not  only  of 
each  other's  labour,  but  also  of  the  labour  of  untold 
generations  that  have  gone  before.  In  the  present 
age,  for  one  finished  product  that  I  furnish  I  can  buy 
a  hundred  others  in  return.  We  have  perfected  a 
machinery  whereby  any  sacrifice  the  individual  makes 
can  be  repaid  a  hundred  fold.  This  is  not  sufficiently 
realized  by  those  who  want  to  simplify  things  by  go- 
ing back  to  nature  and  to  a  time  when  all  genuine, 
individual  happiness  was  as  fleeting  as  a  yellow  sun- 
beam in  the  rain. 

An  adjunct  of  the  industrial  world,  with  its  division 
of  labour,  is  the  commercial  world  which  operates  on 
the  theory  that  for  the  thing  I  need  and  like  I  give 
you  the  thing  you  need  and  like.     Presumably  both 


Symbiosis  127 


parties  are  satisfied  and  two  wants  are  met  where  there 
were  no  wants  at  all  or  only  one  before.  In  this 
sphere  there  is  theoretically  no  place  for  either  steal- 
ing or  charity;  needs  are  multiplied  and  at  the  same 
time  satisfied  by  a  process  of  interchange  in  which 
each  man  is  a  hundred  times  a  benevolent  parasite  to 
his  neighbour.  The  ptocess  is  worth  pondering  over. 
It  is  an  attempt  to  answer  the  question  of  how  to  get 
something  for  something  you  do  not  want;  and  the 
whole  transaction  rests  on  one  solitary  prop  and  basis; 
namely,  the  far-reaching  inequality  of  the  separate 
individuals  that  compose  humanity.  If  human  be- 
ings were  all  alike  in  wants  and  needs,  no  intercourse 
or  exchange  of  values  would  be  possible.  It  is  be- 
cause each  man  counts  for  one  and  yet  is  different 
from  others  that  we  can  work  together  and  produce 
any  sort  of  harmony  at  all. 

In  the  world  of  today  with  its  billions  of  inhabitants 
all  highly  diversified  no  one  human  being  can  pos- 
sibly embody  in  himself  all  the  aspects  and  desires 
of  which  humanity  is  capable.  No  one  man  can 
possibly  be  a  poet,  sculptor,  painter,  novelist,  drama- 
tist, actor,  scientist,  aviator,  athlete,  physician — and 
the  list  could  be  extended  to  cover  pages — all  in  one; 
for  we  have  reached  the  stage  where  our  culture  has 
far  outgrown  the  individual.  The  atoms  that  make 
up  the  world  of  humanity  must  not  only  divide  their 
labour  to  supply  their  common  needs,  but  it  pays  them 
to  supply  the  special  needs  which  only  certain  indi- 


128  The  Control  of  Ideals 

viduals  have  developed,  for  thus  the  way  is  opened  to 
an  indefinite  exchange  enriching  the  inmost  life  of 
every  individual.  The  point  is  that  individuals  have 
grown  to  be  so  different  that  what  satisfies  one  no 
longer  satisfies  the  other. 

All  this  means  is  that  we  are  living  in  the  age  of 
the  specialist,  wherein  there  are  unique  wants  and 
needs  to  be  supplied  which  altogether  have  made  us 
more  than  ever  before  dependent  on  each  other  and 
perhaps  on  people  most  remote  from  us.  The  phy- 
sician with  his  microscope  is  dependent  on  the  lens- 
grinder,  who  in  turn  is  dependent  on  the  physicist, 
who  perhaps  gets  his  formula  from  the  mathematician 
and  his  glass  from  the  geologist  and  chemist;  and 
similarly  there  are  thousands  of  other  ramifications  of 
interdependence;  the  saving  grace  in  each  case  being 
that  with  increased  dependence  comes  an  increased 
willingness  to  be  dependent  and  to  be  led  by  others. 
Man's  trust  in  man  increases  as  his  wants  increase; 
and  this  gives  us  an  inkling  of  the  secret  of  co-opera- 
tion. 

The  living  miracle  of  modern  life  is  that  we  are 
all  now  part  and  parcel  of  a  world  of  experts,  the 
breath  of  whose  life  is  to  trust  each  other  and  to  rely 
upon  each  other's  knowledge,  judgment,  and  skilled 
habits  of  co-operation.  We  are  glad  enough  to  be  led 
by  those  who  know.  Any  one  is  willing  to  obey  an 
expert  who  unfailingly  can  help  us.  In  sickness  it  is 
foolish  to  flout  a  physician;  in  legal  affairs  no  one 


Symbiosis  129 


attempts  to  get  on  without  consulting  a  lawyer;  simi- 
larly any  man  a  thousand  times  a  day  trusts  his  life 
to  bai'bers,  chauffeurs,  engineers  and  what  not,  just 
as  he  trusts  his  fortunes  to  a  banker.  There  are 
thousands  of  trained  individuals  all  of  whom  respect 
each  other's  interests  because  it  is  in  their  own  in- 
terest to  do  so.  Men  are  unequal  in  knowledge  and 
skill,  and  it  is  the  part  of  wisdom  and  common  sense 
to  be  willingly  led  by  those  who  through  superior 
knowledge  in  any  line  have  earned  the  right  to  lead 
us;  for  not  every  realm  of  life  is  equally  familiar  to 
us;  and  just  as  a  stranger  in  a  strange  city  does  not 
refuse  a  guide,  so  we  perforce  accept  the  guidance  of 
others  in  realms  of  life  of  which  we  do  not  know 
enough.  That  is  the  secret  of  obedience,  not  force 
or  supine  sacrifice,  but  intelligent  consent  because  of 
a  clear  recognition  that  submission  benefits  both 
leader  and  follower. 

In  other  words  the  secret  of  co-operation  is  mutual 
usefulness  in  supplying  each  other's  wants  varied  as 
they  are  both  physical,  mental,  and  spiritual.  True 
co-operation  is  neither  compulsory  nor  sacrificial,  but 
follows  from  intellectual  insight  and  persuasion. 
Then  let  men  be  unequal ;  it  will  only  be  an  inequality 
that  results  from  growth.  At  the  same  time  it  must 
be  remembered  that  our  human  structure  is  composed 
of  atoms  with  certain  "inalienable"  rights  among 
which  are  "life"  ...  let  us  stop  right  there.  The 
universe  of  human  atoms  is  beginning  to  crumble 


130  The  Control  of  Ideals 

when  it  is  demanded  that  a  portion  of  its  atoms  be 
violently  extinguished.  Just  as  harmony  in  music  is 
inconsistent  with  shrillness,  so  the  music  of  our  sphere 
becomes  shrill  and  inharmonious  when  diversity  is 
carried  to  a  point  where  the  welfare  of  certain  indi- 
viduals demands  the  total  sacrifice  of  others.  In  the 
post-bellum  period  of  the  race  it  will  be  recognized 
that  this  is  never  necessary.  Every  individual  will  be 
compelled  to  worry  along  as  best  he  can  without  de- 
manding the  total  sacrifice  of  others  no  less  possessed 
of  inalienable  rights  than  he.  It  may  be  objected 
that  there  are  really  no  inalienable  rights  unless  we 
choose  to  make  them  so.  The  objection  is  valid.  It 
is  we  who  make  them  inalienable.  It  is  our  only 
way  of  doing  away  with  war.  War  will  be  abolished 
by  the  common  consent  of  a  mankind  educated  into 
the  higher  reaches  of  that  simple,  "live  and  let  live" 
sportsmanship  that  is  the  hallmark  of  democracy. 


CHAPTER  XIII 
ATOMISM 

One  reason  why  democracies  are  among  the  most 
hopeful  of  human  institutions  is  that  they  are  based 
on  the  fundamentally  correct  principle  of  atomism 
In  its  championship  of  the  people  and  its  determina 
tion  to  give  all  individuals  an  equal  chance,  democ 
racy  places  itself  unequivocably  on  a  scientific  basis 
It  lays  a  foundation  that  is  analogous  to  the  founda 
tion  of  the  world  which,  according  to  the  best  knowl 
edge  available  throughout  the  ages,  is  also  composed 
of  atoms  of  some  sort,  alike  enough  to  work  together 
and  yet  unlike  enough  to  be  different  and  to  make 
a  difference.     The  individual  is  the  atom  of  society, 
the  unit  which  enters  into  every  human  relation  and 
problem. 

Ethics  was  first  bom  when  the  individual  became 
conscious  of  himself  as  a  unit  separate  from  his  en- 
vironment. Without  a  self  there  is  no  value.  With- 
out a  centre  of  reference,  such  as  the  zero-stripe  on  a 
thermometer,  there  are  neither  negative  nor  positive 
evaluations.  Everything  to  have  any  value  at  all 
must  have  a  value  either  positive  or  negative  for  some- 
body or  something,  and  the  one  reference  point  that  is 

131 


132  The  Control  of  Ideals 

surging  more  and  more  clearly  to  the  front  as  time 
goes  on  is  the  individual.  The  individual  is  the  unit 
of  ethics. 

Every  science  has  its  elemental  units.  In  chem- 
istry the  structural  unit  is  the  atom;  in  society  it  is 
the  individual.  No  other  unit  such  as  the  family  or 
nation  in  simplicity,  compactness,  or  clear  outlines 
approaches  the  individual  who  in  modem  sociology 
plays  a  role  comparable  to  that  of  the  atom  in  chem- 
istry. An  atom  is  supposed  to  be  indivisible.  So 
are  individuals.  To  be  sure,  modem  physics  is 
speaking  of  electrons  and  electrical  charges  just  as 
modem  psychology  speaks  of  the  subconscious  and  of 
dissociated  personality,  but  these  are  distinctions 
within  the  unit,  not  separable  parts.  An  atom  is  sup- 
posed to  be  able  to  enter  into  more  varied  complexes 
than  any  other  unit.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
individual.  Moreover  the  atom  is  indestructible. 
By  this  is  meant  that  the  atom  is  an  essential  part  of 
any  combination  into  which  it  enters ;  so  much  so,  that 
if  the  atom  perishes  all  else  perishes  with  it.  It  is 
obvious  that  this  holds  also  of  the  individual.  So- 
ciety might  worry  along  without  states  or  without 
tribes  or  families  but  it  is  inconceivable  that  it  should 
get  along  without  individuals.  These  are  only  the 
more  obvious  reasons  why  it  is  convenient  to  riiake  the 
individual  the  comerstone  of  ethics;  there  are  other 
and  more  fundamental  reasons. 

One  of  these  is  that  an  essential  element  of  any 


Atomism  133 


process  that  makes  for  ethics  is  negation,  and  that 
the  only  genuine  negator  we  know  of  is  the  individual. 
When  the  individual  by  becoming  self-conscious  at- 
tains a  certain  degree  of  independence  from  his  en- 
vironment, he  is  immediately  compelled  to  fight  for 
that  independence;  he  becomes  a  destructive  and  a 
constructive  centre,  and  it  is  the  destructive  side  of  any 
process  of  healthy  living  that  is  most  frequently  over- 
looked. The  first  step  in  ethical  development  is 
not  acceptance  but  negation.  In  order  that  ethics  be 
possible  at  all  men  must  first  become  dissatisfied  with 
things  as  they  are;  and  there  is  no  dissatisfaction 
without  a  desire  to  destroy  or  at  least  to  alter  the 
present.  Thus  there  has  been,  since  the  beginning 
of  man,  at  the  bottom  of  ethics  something  profoundly 
destructive.  We  have  altered  the  face  of  the  earth. 
What  has  stood  in  the  way  of  our  progress  has  had  to 
be  changed.  We  begin  by  being  destructive,  and 
when  to  this  destructive  tendency  there  is  added  a 
tinge  of  elemental  creative  force,  such  as  crops  out 
in  nature  everywhere  and  such  as  is  responsible  for 
all  the  growth  and  differentiation  in  the  world  around 
us,  conditions  are  ripe  for  ethical  development. 
What  differentiates  man  from  the  animals  is  his  abil- 
ity to  negate  the  things  that  are,  in  favour  of  the  things 
that  are  to  be. 

This  ethical  negation  is  not  to  be  confused  with 
logical  negation  or  even  with  the  far  deeper  negation 
preached  by  the  pessimist.     Ethical  negation  is  the 


134  The  Control  of  Ideals 

trunk  and  parent  stem  of  logical  negation  which  is  of 
application  only  in  the  sphere  of  verbal  judgments, 
whereas  ethical  negation  is  part  and  parcel  of  every 
concrete  human  effort  at  amelioration  through  a  de- 
nial of  the  past  in  favour  of  the  future.  Furthermore 
it  differs  from  pessimistic  or  Buddhistic  negation  in 
being  a  negation  only  of  things  connected  with  the 
self  and  never  of  the  self  proper;  thus  eschewing 
suicide  or  self-abnegation  in  any  form  because  the 
only  thing  destroyed  is  that  which  stands  in  the  way 
of  growth,  and  never  the  germ  of  growth  itself. 
Ethics  no  more  destroys  the  self  than  the  shedding  of 
a  snake's  skin  destroys  the  snake.  Katabolism  no- 
where need  stand  in  the  way  of  anabolism.  Thus  the 
Greeks  destroyed  barbaric  civilization  but  left  their 
own.  If  they  had  been  satisfied  with  the  art  of  bar- 
barians, they  would  never  have  been  led  to  substitute 
something  infinitely  more  advanced  and  perfect;  for 
the  minute  man  is  completely  satisfied  with  his  own 
handiwork,  he  is  like  the  beasts  that  perish  because 
they  too  are  able  to  accept  things  as  they  are. 

The  individual  is  the  proper  unit  in  ethics  because 
it  is  the  individual  alone  that  is  self-conscious.  We, 
personal  human  beings,  are  the  only  things  on  earth 
awake  enough  to  know  that  anything  is  worth  any- 
thing at  all.  The  living,  breathing  individual  is  the 
only  conscious  negator  and  creator,  bearer  of  both 
memory  and  imagination,  the  one  intelligent  centre 
and  origin  of  the  entire  process  of  ethical  metabolism. 


Atomism  135 


This  applies  to  the  concrete  individual  and  not  to  an 
abstraction.  It  has  been  said  that  the  individual  can 
never  be  the  unit  of  ethics  because  strictly  speaking 
the  individual  does  not  exist  at  all.  On  this  view  the 
word  "individual"  is  but  a  name  given  to  a  number 
of  different,  largely  mental,  relations  existing  to- 
gether, and  it  is  the  state  or  society  that  makes  the 
man.  This  is  fallacious.  It  is  the  same  as  if  one 
should  say  that  all  there  is  to  sight  is  colours,  and 
should  proceed  to  illustrate  this  by  saying:  "Take 
away  from  a  man  the  colour  red  and  the  colour  blue, 
and  continue  to  take  away  colours  until  none  are  left, 
and  by  so  doing  you  will  deprive  a  man  of  his  sight." 
By  no  means.  Darkness  deprives  us  of  colour,  but  a 
man  in  the  dark  or  a  man  with  his  eyes  shut  is  not 
blind.  Similarly  abstract  from  a  man  all  the  mul- 
titudinous activities  that  fill  his  waking  hours,  and 
you  will  have  a  completely  idle  and  blank  man,  but 
the  potentiality  of  it  all  remains ;  the  power  of  creat- 
ing families,  making  states,  entering  into  a  thousand 
and  one  relations  is  still  there.  Another  objection 
is  to  the  effect  that  even  if  society  did  not  produce  the 
individual,  it  cannot  be  denied  that  everybody  has  a 
father  and  a  mother,  and  to  that  extent  at  least  it  is 
the  race  which  has  produced  the  individual.  This, 
however,  is  again  a  mere  figure  of  speech.  Indi- 
viduals are  not  produced  by  the  race  or  by  society  or 
by  any  common  term  at  all,  but  merely  by  other  in- 
dividuals.    It  is  the  individual  that  produces  other 


136  The  Control  of  Ideals 

individuals,  that  is  the  most  that  can  be  said. 
The  fact  that  an  individual  becomes  a  member  of  a 
family  or  of  a  group  of  any  kind,  such  as  a  State, 
does  not  make  him  less  an  individual.  Just  as  a  man 
has  ten  fingers  or  a  wife  or  a  home  so  also  he  has  a 
State.  The  individual  is  a,  convenient  unit  just  be- 
cause he  is  capable  of  entering  into  various  combina- 
tions and  becoming  a  member  of  the  most  varied 
groups  including  humanity  in  general;  but  this  does 
not  prevent  the  individual  from  being  in  every  way 
prior  to  his  own  creations.  The  State,  the  family,  the 
nation,  and  all  the  products  of  combined  effort  since 
the  beginning  of  co-operation  exist  only  because  of 
individuals  and  are  the  products  of  individuals.  All 
general  institutions  have  only  a  guarding,  conserving, 
and  protective  function.  As  soon  as  they  are  re- 
garded as  ends  to  which  to  dedicate  ourselves  they 
fail  in  their  primary  function,  and  end  by  becoming 
stumbling  blocks  to  progress.  Not  even  the  race  will 
do  as  an  end  in  itself,  because  the  word  "race"  is  an 
abstraction.  Living  for  the  race  generally  mean^ 
that  the  present  generation  lives  for  some  future  gen- 
eration, thus  implying  that  this  future  generation  at 
least  has  a  right  to  live  for  its  own  sake.  If  a  future 
generation  may  do  this,  why  not  we?  Even  to  live 
for  the  glory  of  God  implies,  as  divines  in  the  heyday 
of  theology  well  saw,  a  deity  that  is  self-sufficient  and 
that  really  does  not  need  us  at  all.  Nor  is  it  true  that 
society,  the  State,  etc.  exist  FOR  the  individual — 


Atomism  137 


nothing  in  our  human  world  lives  or  exists  in  the  first 
place  for  anything  else — they  exist  not  for  but  be- 
cause of  the  individual,  and  to  exalt  the  State  or  the 
race  above  the  individual  is  to  prize  the  golden  eggs 
above  the  goose  that  lays  them.  Dreams  are  not 
greater  than  the  dreamer. 

This  does  not  necessarily  mean  that  man  is  himself 
the  raison  d'etre  of  everything  on  earth.  Back  of 
value  itself,  back  of  the  very  thing  value,  lies  that 
which  constitutes  its  value;  namely,  the  individual. 
Value  is  a  human  product,  a  concomitant  of  self- 
consciousness,  a  quality  more  frail  and  full  of  pathos 
than  we  know  because  it  exists  only  for  us.  Outside 
of  humanity  there  is  no  ethics,  any  more  than  for 
animals  without  eyes  anything  is  either  red  or  blue. 
Man  is  the  measurer,  not  the  measure  of  things.  His 
baubles  are  worth  all  the  world  to  him,  but  when  all 
is  said  and  done  he  gets  them  from  the  storehouse  of 
his  own  soul,  and  it  is  his  pleasure  both  to  make 
them  and  to  break  them.  Man  lives  by  his  ideals, 
but  as  they  are  attained  he  kills  them  off  and  makes 
him  new  ones.  Ethics  is  a  process  of  transvaluation, 
assimilation,  and  growth  in  which  there  are  no  ever- 
lasting values  and  the  only  eternity  is  the  present. 
Perhaps  the  very  meaning  of  death  is  that  life  right 
here  and  now  should  be  intensified  and  rendered  glor- 
ious. All  putting  off  of  the  final  end  of  life  into 
future  generations  or  into  the  race  is  at  bottom 
cowardice  and  self-deception,  for  the  accepted  time 


138  The  Control  of  Ideals 

is  the  present.  Death  and  our  ever  changing  ideals 
are  the  stings  by  which  our  life  becomes  significant 
and  beautiful.  The  seed  lives  in  the  plant,  not  the 
plant  in  the  seed.  There  is  a  spiritual  meaning  in 
the  carpe  diem  philosophy  which  has  never  yet  been 
fully  fathomed.  If  all  things  lived  for  ever  and  noth- 
ing ever  perished,  there  could  be  no  values  and  no 
ethics.  It  is  because  things  cannot  last  that  they  are 
doubly  dear  to  us.  Life  is  a  flame  that  changes  as 
it  bums,  and  never  twice  does  it  cast  the  same  shadow 
on  the  wall.  The  flowering  of  our  earth  is  the  life 
that  courses  through  our  veins  at  this  very  moment, 
burning  brightly  in  our  own  unique  and  unredupli- 
catable  personalities.  Ethics  begins  with  self- 
consciousness  and  ends  in  self-realization. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
FUNCTION  OF  IDEALS 

In  the  picturesque  atomism  of  ancient  times  it  was 
said  that  some  of  the  atoms  were  smooth,  some  rough, 
some  round,  some  square,  and  that  some  had  hooks 
by  which  they  hooked  themselves  together  into  com- 
binations capable  of  unlimited  development.  Human 
atoms  also  have  hooks;  namely,  their  ideals;  and 
what  I  have  been  trying  to  say  all  along  is  that  the 
essential  function  of  these  ideals  is  to  fasten  us  to 
each  other  rather  than  to  impossible  mirages  that  pull 
us  up  by  the  roots  away  from  the  solid  earth  into  de- 
struction. The  moral  has  been  that  our  ideals  should 
not  be  regarded  as  ladders  to  heaven  or  cobwebs  to 
the  clouds,  but  as  anchors  by  which  we  sink  ourselves 
deeper  into  the  spiritual  texture  of  our  fellowmen 
which  is  our  rightful  home. 

All  of  our  ideals  are  at  bottom  ideal  men — that 
must  never  be  forgotten.  All  idealistic  endeavour 
consists  in  taking  steps  that  will  make  each  of  us  a 
more  perfect  human  being.  If,  in  concentrating  on 
the  steps,  we  forget  the  goal  in  view,  we  have  only 
our  own  stupidity  to  blame.  If,  instead  of  working 
f 6r  better  men  through  better  political  States,  we  for- 

139 


140  The  Control  of  Ideals 

get  the  men  and  work  only  for  the  States,  disaster 
alone  can  result;  clashing  States  become  a  maelstrom 
in  which  millions  meet  their  deaths;  and  our  ideals 
divide  and  destroy  instead  of  harmonize  humanity. 
A  race  grown  up  enough  to  recognize  the  human  aim 
and  function  of  ideals  cannot  with  impunity  pervert 
the  normal  use  of  these  ideals. 

Once  upon  a  time  in  the  days  before  we  had  per- 
fected language  as  a  means  of  communication  with 
each  other,  a  man  and  his  neighbour  stood  apart,  and 
there  was  more  than  a  modicum  of  excuse  for  blood 
and  tears  through  human  strife;  but  now  that  we  have 
our  language  and  our  ideals  and  know  what  they  are 
for,  to  use  these  hooks,  by  which  alone  the  isolated 
atoms  of  humanity  can  get  together  and  co-operate, 
as  weapons  of  offence  with  which  to  tear  the  souls 
and  bodies  of  brothers  asunder  is  the  crowning  blun- 
der of  the  ages.  The  hooks,  or  anticipatory  varia- 
tions as  we  have  elsewhere  called  them,  are  meant  to 
enrich  the  life  of  the  human  atom.  If  these  varia- 
tions are  too  unlike  the  human  parent  stem,  they  lure 
us  into  the  evolutionary  bypaths  of  destruction.  If 
the  new  variation  sets  brother  against  brother  and 
hopelessly  divides  the  house  of  humanity  against 
itself,  there  is  something  wrong  with  the  new  varia- 
tion. As  pointed  out  before,  the  variations  must 
bring  us  together,  not  drive  us  apart.  Our  ideas  and 
ideals  are  the  tentacles  by  which  we  combine,  inter- 
penetrate,  and  produce  marvels  of  unified  effort; 


Function  of  Ideals  141 

they  are  our  wireless  to  each  other,  the  electrical  pulls 
and  tugs  by  which  we  keep  alive  and  growing.  The 
present  age  is  the  age  of  the  all-powerful  idea.  A 
man  fills  sheets  of  paper  with  queer  marks,  the  eye 
of  another  man  falls  on  these  marks,  and  without 
stirring  a  muscle  the  deepest  springs  of  action,  re- 
solve, and  character  in  these  two  men  may  have  been 
touched;  a  common  ideal  may  have  linked  these  two 
beings  for  ever  together. 

Once  the  beneficently  human  quality  of  ideals  is 
clearly  grasped,  there  follows  a  general  uncrowning  of 
impossible  and  dangerous  ideals,  a  laying  aside  of  all 
extravagance  in  the  worship  of  romanticism,  and  a 
sober  testing  of  ideals  in  the  light  of  everyday  pos- 
sibilities. In  these  days  of  fast  gathering  democracy, 
it  has  become  an  anachronism  to  do  our  ideals  more 
than  regal  honour  by  placing  them  on  autocratic 
thrones  before  which  we  bow  low  in  self-effacement, 
ready  to  annihilate  ourselves.  Ideals  are  not  meant 
to  lead  us  into  such  an  exaggeratedly  worshipful  atti- 
tude. The  time  has  come  to  rob  them  of  their  heredi- 
tary splendours.  From  kings  let  them  become  the 
servants  of  the  people.  Thus  our  highest  ideals  will 
once  more  become  a  living,  helpful  part  of  our  de- 
mocracies instead  of  the  greatest  single  danger  that 
these  democracies  have  to  face.  Ideals  have  merely 
been  abused.  They  are  still  among  the  highest  things 
in  life.  Who  will  say  that  the  intellect  of  man  or  even 
the  strength  of  man  has  always  been  used  in  splendidly 


142  The  Control  of  Ideals 

constructive  ways?  All  these  gifts  have  been  abused 
time  and  again  and  so  has  the  imagination,  but  rightly 
used  its  gifts  are  priceless.  Our  ideals  need  only 
be  humanized. 

At  the  same  time  even  after  recognizing  the  essen- 
tially human  quality  and  function  of  ideals,  there 
still  remains  the  work  of  sorting  out  the  impossible 
ones  and  putting  into  use  the  truly  available  ones. 
Some  indications  of  this  process  have  already  been 
given.  Ideals  first  flourish  in  the  imagination  of  in- 
dividuals, then  they  encounter  the  weeding  out  process 
of  contact  and  conflict  with  ideals  from  other  minds — 
all  this  occurring  in  the  realm  of  language  and  free 
discussion.  Finally  by  a  majority  vote  ideals  crys- 
tallize into  the  law  or  custom  of  the  land.  The 
danger  of  embodying  them  too  soon  has  been  pointed 
out;  also  the  possibilities  of  unprecedented  richness 
of  ideals  by  enlarging  the  environment  of  human 
minds  upon  which  ideals  first  impinge.  It  is  a  fasci- 
nating hypothesis  this — that  in  the  realm  of  ideals 
not  only  the  ideal  but  also  the  environment  is  largely 
subject  to  human  control.  Out  of  men's  heads  have 
come  ideas  of  beauty  which  are  embodied  in  art;  out 
of  men's  brains  have  come  ideas  of  comfort  which  are 
embodied  in  the  comforts  of  civilization;  out  of  the 
welter  of  thought  have  come  theories  which  upon  ap- 
plication have  changed  the  face  of  the  earth.  The 
significant  point  here  is  that  had  ideals  not  come  their 
application  likewise  would  never  have  occurred ;  and 


Function  of  Ideals  143 

a  corollary  is  that  the  more  numerous  and  searching 
our  ideals,  the  greater  and  more  far-reaching  their 
eventual  application  in  the  world  of  solid  fact  and 
matter  which  from  first  to  last  ought  to  be  our  one 
and  only  adversary. 

Whatever  happens  ideals  must  be  kept  coming  be- 
cause they  lead  to  discoveries  which  slowly  but  surely 
are  opening  up  the  secret  of  earth's  rebellion,  and 
changing  its  antagonistic  spirit  into  one  of  co-opera- 
tion. Moreover,  old  ideals  in  the  course  of  time  lose 
their  utility  and  must  be  replaced.  Unless  we  keep 
on  growing  (i.  e.  producing  ideals)  the  body  of  hu- 
manity decays  and  dies.  All  of  our  present  laws  and 
institutions,  admirable  though  they  may  be,  will  not 
keep  us  from  eventual  stagnation  and  death  unless 
through  life  and  more  of  it  we  someday  penetrate  to 
the  heart  of  the  whole  life-and-death  process  and  so 
discover  the  secret  of  happiness — ^happiness,  not  con- 
tentment, for  we  are  made  of  sterner  and  more 
strenuous  stuff  than  rocks  or  mountains.  They  may 
last  forever  but  we  do  not  want  to  last  unless  we 
grow;  in  fact  we  cannot  last  unless  we  grow.  We  are 
doomed  to  develop  or  to  die,  and  the  world  does  not 
seem  to  care  much  which  we  do;  but  one  thing  we 
know  and  that  is  that  the  only  thing  to  keep  the  world 
of  human  beings  alive  and  growing  is  the  multitude  of 
young  ideals  that,  budding  in  the  hearts  and  imagina- 
tions of  men,  flower  out  into  new  civilizations  com- 
posed of  new  laws,  arts,  and  sciences  or,  what  is  the 


144  The  Control  of  Ideals 

same  thing,  continual  improvements  on  the  old.  That 
ought  to  be  the  burden  of  post-bellum  ethics  that  the 
source  of  growth  must  be  protected  until  such  indis- 
cernible day  as  not  the  individual  alone  but  the  entire 
race  will  have  attained  its  full  stature. 

Unless  the  whole  of  civilization  be  first  and  fore- 
most a  method  of  safeguarding  the  sanctity  of  the 
individual,  no  matter  how  we  turn,  the  very  ends 
which  we  pursue  will  be  defeated.  Our  civilization 
is  the  framework  of  a  larger  liberty,  the  liberty  of 
individuals  to  enjoy  each  other,  the  liberty  to  love  and 
grow  and  make  wondrous  ties,  the  liberty  through 
miracles  in  science  and  art  to  fathom  the  depths  of 
each  other's  spirits,  for  at  bottom  man  has  no  other 
interest  than  man.  We  may  temporarily  deceive  our- 
selves into  thinking  that  we  are  souls  that  dwell  apart 
in  pursuit  of  impossible  ideals,  but  to  be  candid  we 
are  only  animals  with  a  splendid  imagination,  at  most 
small  incarnate  chunks  of  a  whirling  world,  not  yet 
controlling  the  physical  machinery  we  grow  upon. 
Meanwhile  as  human  beings  we  have  each  other  and 
our  ideals. 

And  it  is  the  ideals  that  are  significant.  If  we 
hope  to  progress  much  further  beyond  the  unconscious 
beings  that  in  the  past  we  were,  it  will  be  because  in 
our  imagination  we  can  shadow  forth  brightly  as  in  an 
iridescent  glass  the  things  we  hope  and  may  not  hope 
to  be,  the  future  within  our  reach  and  the  future  for 
ever  impossible.     By  loving  the  latter  less  and  the 


Function  of  Ideals  145 

former  more  we  shall  encourage  the  processes  of 
growth  and  perhaps  succeed  in  killing  off  for  ever  the 
dangerous  ideals  that  make  us  strangers  to  each  other 
in  their  demand  for  sacrifices  that  leave  eternal  scars. 
The  supreme  danger,  worthy  of  avoiding  at  all  costs, 
is  the  possibility  that  by  stopping  up  the  fount  of  our 
ideals,  we  dry  up  at  the  same  time  the  source  of  art, 
literature,  legislation,  growth,  and  life  itself. 


CHAPTER  XV 

MORAL  COURAGE 

Ethics  treats  of  ideals,  their  origin,  nature,  pos- 
sibilities, and  control,  especially  the  latter,  and  this 
control  of  our  ideals  amounts  to  nothing  less  than  an 
attempt  to  lay  down  the  rules  for  the  game  of  life. 
More  than  that — we  not  only  lay  down  the  rules  but 
we  invent  the  game.  The  scope  of  the  game,  rules 
to  be  obeyed,  and  the  spirit  in  which  we  should  play 
are  all  parts  of  ethics.  And  because  we  ourselves 
make  the  rules  is  no  reason  why  they  should  be  any 
the  less  binding;  for,  as  the  player  of  any  game  knows, 
the  rules  must  be  obeyed  or  there  is  no  game  and  no 
enjoyment.  Also  care  must  be  taken  that  the  rules 
are  neither  too  simple  and  unprovocative  of  skill  on 
the  one  hand,  nor  unfair  or  too  difficult  on  the  other 
hand.  It  is  unfair,  for  instance,  to  frame  the  rules 
in  such  a  manner  that  some  of  the  players  have  not 
even  a  chance  of  living  and  then  to  try  and  cultivate 
a  spirit  in  which  those  who  must  inevitably  lose  will 
be  reconciled  to  their  lot.  Every  individual  should, 
as  far  as  is  humanly  possible,  have  a  chance  at  the 
game  guaranteed,  and  never  be  asked  to  make  the 
supreme  sacrifice  of  giving  up  his  life  for  others. 

146 


Moral  Courage  147 


Wars  are  the  one  shrieking  injustice  of  modem  times. 
On  the  other  hand  we  are  not  mollycoddles  who  want 
life  to  be  an  everlasting  pink  tea  without  any  excite- 
ment. And  there  is  the  ruh.  How  can  we  provide 
excitement  without  loading  the  dice?  How  can  the 
game  of  life  be  made  interesting  for  all,  and  yet  not 
so  deathly  serious  that  part  of  the  race  will  always 
have  to  give  up  its  life  for  the  rest?  It  is  the  old 
problem  of  how  to  get  harmony  without  shrillness 
that  we  have  just  been  discussing.  It  is  the  problem 
that  runs  through  nature  everywhere  of  how  to  get 
the  greatest  diversity  consistent  with  nature's  grand 
and  fundamental  uniformities.  It  is  the  question  of 
where  to  find  not  the  bypaths  but  the  grand  highway 
of  life  on  which  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  go  astray. 
For  when  all  is  said  and  done  man  is  bom  in  chains; 
we  are  prisoners;  liberty  must  be  achieved.  Some- 
thing ties  us  down,  and  our  task  is  to  run  as  far  as 
our  rope  will  permit  without,  in  our  gyrations,  tying 
knots  in  the  rope  that  will  shorten  it  for  ever.  All  the 
skill,  experience,  and  good  sportsmanship  that  we  can 
muster  will  be  needed. 

The  interest  of  the  game  depends  on  us.  James 
was  distinctly  on  the  right  track  when  as  a  moral 
equivalent  of  war  he  suggested  a  more  strenous  play- 
ing of  the  game  of  life  itself.  As  a  substitute  for  war 
what  can  be  both  more  terrifying  and  satisfactory  than 
the  still  unfinished  war  against  nature,  against  the 
clods  that  bind  us,  against  the  powers  that  kill  us, 


148  The  Control  of  Ideals 

against  the  horrible  unmorality,  injustice,  and  stupid- 
ity of  conditions  surrounding  human  life  still  less  than 
half  unfettered,  still  immovable  within  the  coils  of 
natural  laws  more  stupid  than  our  own?  There  is  a 
great  outcry  against  war  which  kills  some  of  us,  but 
none  against  nature  which  kills  all  of  us.  Plainly  the 
ringing  challenge  of  today  comes  to  us,  not  from  the 
clamour  of  gods  of  our  own  making,  but  from  the 
turmoil  of  earth  with  its  pestilences,  deaths,  and  cyn- 
ical sacrifices  that,  like  our  own  wars,  must  not  go 
on  for  ever.  All  our  battles  with  each  other  and  with 
our  own  ignorant  superstitions  are  but  a  prelude  to  a 
far  off  but  infinitely  more  exciting  battle  still  to  be 
waged  by  a  united  humanity  against  the  elements. 
The  time  has  come  for  us  to  get  at  least  a  glimmer  of 
our  greater  task  compared  with  which  our  present 
problems  are  but  child's  play. 

Life's  great  game  is  bound  to  go  on,  getting  more 
intricate  and  daring  as  the  ages  pass;  and  as  the  race 
grows  older  and  death  perhaps  sits  in  a  little  closer 
at  the  play,  refusing  to  be  trumped,  it  is  possible  that 
the  game  may  deepen  into  a  tragedy.  But  what  of 
that?  Tragedies  can  at  least  be  beautiful.  The 
thing  to  do  is  to  play  the  game  and  not  make  false 
moves  or  rules  that  limit  its  scope  by  forcing  us  into 
an  annihilating  interfratemal  struggle  that  leaves 
death,  our  real  enemy,  a  sure  winner  without  ever 
having  encountered  the  full  strength  of  our  combined 
strategy.     It  must  not  be,  this  true  calamity,  that 


Moral  Courage  149 


the  playing  be  ended  before  we  really  get  into  the 
game.  The  struggle  must  not  be  over  before  it  has 
called  out  all  there  is  in  us  of  suffering  and  joy,  of 
endurance,  wisdom,  and  the  uncanny  insight  born 
from  ever-deepening  experience. 

We  must  give  ourselves  a  rational  opportunity  to 
develop  and  then  if  it  should  turn  out  that  in  the  end 
human  nature  is  not  of  the  world,  not  in  the  highest 
sense  of  the  earth  earthy,  but  merely  adventitious, 
then  we  have  always  our  moral  courage  to  fall  back 
upon.  Moral  courage  is  the  "never  say  die"  spirit 
in  man.  It  is  the  greater  patriotism  engendered  in 
the  whole  human  race  by  the  brute,  unmoral,  and 
stubborn  resistance  of  the  powers  of  nature.  It  comes 
to  us  not  because  the  world  is  with  us,  but  because  it 
is  against  us.  It  is  the  essence  of  aeons  of  human  ex- 
perience, an  unearthly  compound  of  patience,  shrewd- 
ness, suffering,  and  strength,  illumined  by  insight 
from  the  spring  of  a  self -consciousness  deeper  than 
any  we  can  yet  imagine, — the  whole  a  human  quality 
that  calculates  and  calculates  to  win.  All  that  we 
have  of  brain,  brawn,  nerve,  and  imagination  will  be 
needed  merely  to  sustain  the  battle  and  to  solve  our 
final  problem  when  it  comes.  But  the  solution  will 
be  worth  it.     Therefore, 

Schlage  die  Trommel  und  fiirchte  dich  nicht, 
Und  kiisse  die  Marketenderin !   .  .  . 
Trommle  die  Leute  aus  dem  Schlaf 
Trommle  Reveille  mit  Jugendkraft, 


150  The  Control  of  Ideals 

Marschiere  trommeind  immer  voran, 
Das  ist  die  ganze  Wissenschaft. 

Or  if  the  choice  of  a  German  quotation  has  been  un- 
fortunate: 

"Over  the  mountains 

Of  the  Moon, 

Down  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow, 

Ride,  boldly  ride," 

The  shade  replied, 
"If  you  seek  for  Eldorado." 


INDEX 


Age  of  specialists,  128. 
Anarchy,  62. 
Anthropomorphism,  74. 
Appreciation    of   Louis    Pasteur, 

by  Dr.  H.  Byrd,  121. 
Aristotle,  logic,   30;    doctrine  of 

virtue,  112. 
Art,  deepener  of  inner  life,  87; 

anti-sectional     and     universal, 

88;     Greeks    dissatisfied    with 

barbaric  art,  134. 
Artists,  Types  of,  9. 
Atoms,  Greek  view,   112;   theory 

of    Leibnitz,    114;    hooks    on, 

139. 

Bagehot,   Walter,   quoted,   102. 
Beauty,  Ethics  of,  9. 
Bees,  co-operative  life,  125. 
Bergson,  Henri,  intuition,  116. 
Berkeley,  George,  referred  to,  30. 
Bible,  first  great  novel,  88. 
Buddhists,  118. 
Burbank,  Luther,  69. 
Burnet,  John,  acknowledged,  113. 

Cannibalism,  physical  and  spir- 
itual, 32;  lowest  stage  of  de- 
velopment, 66. 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  40. 

Christianity,  compared  with  Uto- 
pianism,  85;  contribution  to- 
ward development  of  inner  life, 
86;  poison  to  nationalism,  87; 
relation  to  science  and  art,  87. 

Christianity  and  Nietzsche,  96. 

Civilization,  precedes  abolition 
of  war,  25 ;  choice  between  dif- 
ferent,    28;     marked     by     in- 


creased worth  of  individual,  69. 

Class  consciousness,  105,  106. 

Cohesion,  Function  of,  91. 

Common  sense,  genesis,  12;  ori- 
gin of  religious  tolerance,  25. 

Condensation  and  rarefaction, 
114. 

Conscience,  Danger  of,  17. 

Co-operation,  imperfect  at  pres- 
ent, 71;  increases  comforts  and 
wants,  92;  in  nature,  122,  125; 
scope,  128;  secret  of,  129. 

Creative  evolution,   114,  117. 

Curiosity,  root  of  ideals  of 
truth,  11;  fount  of  common 
sense  and  tolerance,  12. 

Death,  as  sting  rendering  life 
significant,  138. 

Death  penalty,  67. 

Deity,  Views  of,  4. 

Democracy,  antecedents,  55;  defi- 
nition, 92;  development,  93; 
minimum  requirements,  94 ; 
equality  and  inequality,  94,  95. 

Democritus,   referred  to,   113. 

Descartes,  Rene,  mathematics,  30. 

Division  of  labour,  126. 

Duality,  in  human  beings,  40. 

Duelling,  68. 

Duty,  Ideal  of,  28. 

Earthianism,  62. 

Education,  48,  89. 

Eloquence,  48. 

Enlightenment,   Three   stages   in, 

88. 
Environment  of  ideals,  45. 
Equality,   meaning,  94;   co-exist- 


151 


152 


Inde] 


ent  with  inequality,  95,  96. 

Ethical  negation,  133. 

Ethics,  definition,  1,  137,  138, 
146;  relation  to  war  preven- 
tion, 23;  bases  of  post-bellum 
ethics,  25;  unit  in,  44,  132,  135. 

Ethics  of  the  dust,  122. 

Evolution,  development,  31;  or- 
der of  race,  ideals,  and  indi- 
viduals in,  52. 

Fear,  basis  of  ethics  of  power,  3. 
Final  end  of  life,  136,  137. 

Game  of  life,  46. 

Great  Stone  Face,  4,  5. 

Greeks,  theory  of  elements,  30; 
solution  to  question  of  har- 
mony, 110;  atomism,  113;  art, 
134. 

Growth,  stimulated  by  ideals, 
28;  periods  in  life  of  race,  36; 
due  to  production  of  ideals, 
143;  protecting  source  of,  144. 

Hegel,  G.  W.,  deification  of  State, 
31;  maker  of  Utopias,  81;  re- 
cession from  Christianity,  86. 

Heine,  Heinrich,  quoted,  149. 

History,  Economic  interpreta- 
tion of,  27. 

Homeric  humour,  22. 

Human  race,  Task  of,  107. 

Hume,  David,  referred  to,  30. 

Humour,  International,  104. 

Ideals,  origin,  2;  definition,  2,  39, 
40,  42;  pictorial  quality,  2, 
42,  43,  139;  classification,  3; 
tyrannical  aspect,  18;  priceless 
value,  19;  as  spiritual  food,  21, 
28;  clash  of,  27;  progress  from 
ideal  to  institution,  29;  not 
worth  more  than  life,  33;  de- 
claring independence  from,  33, 


38;  hierarchy,  34;  survival,  39; 
uncrowning,  141. 

Idols,  compared  to  ideals,  15; 
worship  a  training  in  seeing  in- 
visible, 53;  nations  as  idols, 
56. 

Imagination,  source  of  ethical 
duality,  1;  of  civilization,  14; 
of  spiritual  life,  78;  an  experi- 
mental laboratory,  41 ;  strength- 
ened by  religion,  53,  78,  79; 
gifts  abused,  142. 

Immortality,  Dream  of,  8. 

Individual,  unit  of  ethics,  44, 
132,  135 ;  self -determining 
agent,  63;  finisher  of  nature's 
work,  65,  69;  making  world 
safe  for,  69;  more  important 
than  State,  80,  85;  atom  of 
society,  131. 

Inequality,  part  of  democracy, 
95;  relation  to  brute  force,  97; 
results  from  growth,  129. 

Integration,  114,  115. 

Intolerance,  17,  108. 

Intuition,  116. 

James,  William,  pragmatism,  31; 
moral  equivalent  of  war,  147. 
Judaism,  53. 
Justice,  11,  12. 

Labor,  Division  of,  126. 

Laws,  72. 

League  of  nations,  58. 

Leibnitz,  G.  W.,  atomism,  114; 
integration,  115. 

Leucippus,  referred  to,  113. 

Liberty,  strict  construction  of 
"Liberty  or  Death,"  59;  poli- 
tical, 105. 

Lichens,  124. 

Life,  value,  23;  not  a  quiescent 
adjustment,  35;  increasing  re- 
spect for,  66;  an  inalienable 
right,  92,  129;  game  of,  146. 


Index 


153 


Life  of  the  Bee,  by  Maurice  Mae- 
terlinck, 125. 
Literature,  89. 
Locke,  John,  referred  to,  30. 

Maeterlinck,  Maurice,  125. 
Man,  four  ages,  52;  as  the  meas- 
urer of  things,  137. 
Milesians,  referred  to.  111. 
Militarism,  98 
Monads,  115. 
Moral  courage,  149. 

Nature,  battle  against,  62,  148; 
supplemented  by  conscious- 
ness, 65;  disregard  for  indi- 
vidual, 68. 

Negation,  ethical,  logical,  meta- 
physical, 133. 

Nietzsche,  Friedrich,  96,  97. 

Nonresistance,  24. 

Novel,  Modem,  88,  89. 

Old  Testament,  53. 
Other-worldliness,  53-56. 

Pacifism,  23,  98. 

Pasteur,  Louis,  quoted,  121. 

Patriotism,    a    religion,    57;    the 

greater  patriotism,  149. 
Pericles,  referred  to,  98. 
Persuasion,  Greek  theory,  99;  as 

means  of  co-operation,  129. 
Pessimism,  134. 
Phidias,  referred  to,  89. 
Philosophy,  definition  of,  29. 
Physics  and  Politics,   by  Walter 

Bagehot,  102. 
Plato,    other-worldliness    in,    30, 

53,  54;  creator  of  Utopias,  81- 

84;  referred  to,  85. 
Poe,  E.  A.,  quoted,  150. 
Power,  Ideals  of,  3-8. 
Principle   of   Nations,   by   Israel 

Zangwill,  56. 
Pythagoreans,  111. 


Quantity,  Ethics  of,  5,  7. 

Reformation,  55. 

Religion,  deepens  inner  life,  86; 

universality,  88. 
Renaissance,  54,  55. 
Republic,  by  Plato,  81,   82,  87, 

112. 
Rodin,  Auguste,  referred  to,  89. 

Sacrifices,  16,  17. 

Schopenhauer,  Arthur,  quoted, 
36;  referred  to,  118. 

Science,  profoundly  imaginative, 
13;  see  also:  87-90. 

Self-determination,  Planetary, 
123. 

Self-sacrifice,  accepted  creed,  37; 
unjust  to  require  it  of  others, 
97,  98;  also:  118,  123. 

Slavery,  92. 

Social  instinct.  Excess  of,  126. 

Socialism,  62. 

Society,  71. 

Socrates,  referred  to,  43. 

Sophistication,  22,  25. 

Specialization,  126. 

Speech  as  battlefield  of  ideals, 
47. 

Spiritual,  The,  Growing  impor- 
tance of,  75;  correct  valuation, 
77. 

State,  new  attitude  toward,  81; 
Hegel  and  Plato  on,  83;  arti- 
ficiality in,  84,  85. 

Struggle  for  existence  among 
ideals,  39. 

Sublimity,  Ethics  of,  7. 

Summum  bonum,  ideals  regarded 
as,  20;  relation  to  paucity  of 
ideals,  50,  51. 

Tolstoy,  L.  N.,  quoted,  77. 

Tragedy,  148. 

Truth,  Ideals  of,  11-14. 


154 


Index 


Value,  as  measured  by  size,  5; 
dependent  on  a  self,  131;  cre- 
ated by  individual,  137. 

Variation,  Principle  of,  40. 

Virtue,  Doctrine  of,  Aristotle's, 
112. 


sonal  matter,  19;  preventable! 
but  not  curable,  24;  wars  ofj 
conquest  and  ideals,  27;  with 
murderous  nations,  60;  roots, 
119;  abolishment  by  education, 
130;    moral  equivalent,   147. 


War,  avoidance  painful  and  per-     Zangwill,  Israel,  quoted,  56. 


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